Upper Paleolithic Cultural Landscapes of the Selenge Tributaries, Northern Mongolia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The distribution of Upper Paleolithic sites in northern Mongolia indicate that maintaining social networks, subsistence and shelter were all significant factors in the cultural landscapes of these ancient hunter-gatherers. In 2018, 12 new Upper Paleolithic sites were documented in the Naryn Tolberiin Gol (Narrow Tolbor River, n=21) valley of the greater Selenge River Basin that feeds Lake Baikal farther north, bringing the total number for the Tolbor locality to 95 sites (including 74 sites from the neighboring Ikh Tolberiin (Big Tolbor/Tolbor), n=45, Kharganyn, n=17, and Altatyn, n=12, rivers). Site distributions indicate a settlement preference for south- and east-facing slopes, warmth from solar exposure and shelter from cold northern winds, with prominent viewsheds of surrounding terrain for game monitoring, and locations near either mountain passes or confluences with the Selenge River or secondary drainages, for maintaining social networks between valley systems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25974