On the Attribution of Lithic Industry from the Early Paleolithic Site of Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka, the Taman Peninsula

On the Attribution of Lithic Industry
from the Early Paleolithic Site of Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka,
the Taman Peninsula

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.3.032-039

S.A. Kulakov
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya nab. 18, St. Petersburg, 191186, Russia

The study describes and compares lithic artifacts from the Early Paleolithic site of Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka, as well as those collected in coastal screes and on the nearby beach. Interdisciplinary studies, which have been ongoing at the site for more than 20 years, have made it possible to conclude that the age of the site exceeds 1 mln years, and that it was a butchering place. In the Early Pleistocene, a lacustral crater of a mud volcano was situated nearby. This mud marsh was a place where many large mammals such as Taman elephants and Caucasian elasmotheres bathed and perished. Humans procured them before they had drowned, and butchered them, as evidenced by the specific toolkit. The industry of the site is attributed to the Taman variety of the Oldowan stage of the Early Paleolithic. As the comparative analysis indicates, lithics from the screes and from the beach near the site are morphologically different from those at the site. The rocks of which they are made are of a higher quality, and the types are more expressive, which especially concerns cores and spalls. This industry should be attributed to the Taman variety of the Acheulean stage of the Early Paleolithic.

Keywords: Early Paleolithic, Northern Eurasia, Oldowan and Acheulean technological stages, Taman Peninsula, Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka, lithic industry