In Search of Upper Paleolithic Sites in Alluvial Contexts in the Tsukh (Chikoi) Valley, Northern Mongolia

Summary

Mongolia, located at a key crossroads for human migration between central, eastern, and northern Asia, is important for understanding a number of current hotly debated archaeological topics, including the possible human exodus out of northern Eurasia at the Last Glacial Maximum (24,000-18,000 cal yr BP), the emergence of microblade technology as an adaptation to extremely cold and harsh environmental conditions, and the route and process of an initial modern human migration into high latitudes (and ultimately into the Americas). Notwithstanding the significance of Upper Paleolithic research in Mongolia, the ages of many sites are not supported by reliable geochronological evidence due to their poor preservation in colluvial contexts. In 2013 a team of Mongolian, Japanese and American researchers began survey and initial testing of sites along the Tsukh, or Chikoi in Russian, River where a number of high, stable alluvial terraces have been identified. Here we present the initial results of subsurface testing at the Bayantsagaan’uul-1 site (49º45’29"N, 107º31’51"E) and pedestrian survey along the river.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage