The Ust’-Menza 14 (Lagernaya) Site and Its Place in the Middle Upper Paleolithic of Southern Siberia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

With implications affecting numerous anthropological debates, Paleolithic discoveries in Siberia are important to understand how humans initially spread across Eurasia and into the Americas. Here we introduce Lagernaya, a middle Upper Paleolithic site in the Transbaikal Region of southern Siberia. Three 14C dates from the site's oldest cultural layer indicate a possible age >30,000 cal bp. Its stone tool assemblage is characterized by large, informal tools made on local river gravel, and smaller, more formal tools using high-quality, exotic raw material. While there are small, amorphous flake and bladelette cores, no evidence of formal wedge-shaped microblade technology exists. Given its elevation above the modern channel, and other geological and pedogenic evidence, the site was believed to be associated with the Menza River’s second terrace, but it now seems that the oldest material is in a buried part of an older Chikoi River terrace. Furthermore, most, if not all, of the artifacts and features may be in a secondary context, displaced from their original location by erosional flooding. Despite these shortcomings, research at Lagernaya has the potential to yield valuable information about the Siberian Upper Paleolithic just before, or possibly during, the Last Glacial Maximum.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38130.0