Organization of Technology at Solak-1, an Upper Paleolithic Open-Air Site in the Armenian Highlands

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Pleistocene Landscapes and Hominin Behavior in the Armenian Highlands" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Solak-1 is an Upper Paleolithic open-air site located in central Armenia discovered by the Kotayk Survey Project. An obsidian-rich lithic assemblage totaling about 2,500 artifacts was recovered from six stratified horizons and subjected to techno-typological attribute analysis. Core reduction appears predominantly aimed at the production of bladelets from formal and informal cores. Reduction was primarily unidirectional, but final stages of bladelet core use-life were often characterized by bidirectional knapping to extend the use of near exhausted or ruined cores. The toolkit is likewise characterized by tools made on bladelet and small blade blanks, predominantly in the form of laterally retouched pieces. Occupation intensity indexes suggest little early-stage reduction, high retouch frequency, and low reduction intensity, pointing to a pattern of high mobility and curation and decreased occupation duration. Obsidian artifact sourcing shows a similar pattern, with high levels of local raw material procurement and intermittent transport of raw material over distances of at least 250 km. The metric and technological attributes of Solak-1 are compared to other published Upper Paleolithic sites in the Armenian Highlands to assess the place of this site in the regional sequence, adding to our understanding of Homo sapiens behavior during the Late Pleistocene in Armenia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Pleistocene Landscapes and Hominin Behavior in the Armenian Highlands

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36108.0