Institute of Archaeology NASU, Heroiv Stalinhrada Ave, 12, Kyiv, Ukraine, 04210 [VadimStepanchuK@iananu.org.ua]
Resume. Located in the Dnieper valley and dated to ca. 32,000–31,000 cal BP, the site of Mira is characterized by a high level of conservation of human activity evidences. A large number of lithic products, faunal remains, bone items, including engraved objects, as well as anthropological remains have been discovered here. An important specific characteristic of the site is its position in an area without lithic raw material outcrops. Lithic industry of Mira, layer I, can confidently be regarded as homogenous and containing no admixtures. At the same time, it is multi-component and includes specific Middle and Upper Palaeolithic tool types. Bifacial products constitute the essential archaic feature and are a focus of the presented paper. As a pivotal issue several related tasks are considered: to evaluate whether intensive use and recycling can distort the set of bifacial artefacts; to understand what role (core vs. tool) did bifacial artefacts play in technological chaîne operatoire under the conditions of shortage of raw materials; to examine which analogies for bifacial products of Mira, layer I, can be found, based on their technology and morphology. The analysis of available data allows concluding that the initial set of bifacial products was definitely distorted: some bifaces were used as cores, whilst the others were significantly reshaped and reduced. At the same time, no indication exists that the bifaces in question served as mobile cores from the outset. Instead, they actually played a role of occasional situational cores. Bifacial products were sometimes intentionally fragmented. The same practice of intentional fragmentation was widely applied to flake tools. The industry is characterized by a fairly frequent use of anvil splitting technology. Techno-morphological features of bifacial products from layer I give grounds for searching the closest analogies in local Micoquian-related Middle Palaeolithic assemblages. The combination of bifacial leaf-shaped points and Aurignacian features is an essential feature of the inventory and determines the search for analogies among the Szeletian and Streletskaya assemblages.
Keywords: Eastern Europe, Upper Palaeolithic, bifacial products, raw material shortage, Szeletian, Micoquian, Aurignacian.
Received 25.09.2019, revised 08.10.2019, accepted 11.10.2019.
DOI: 10.31600/2658-3925-2019-2-5-34
For citation: Stepanchuk V. N. Bifacial products from the upper layer of the site of Mira in the Dnieper region: context, techno-morphological features, and current interpretations. Prehistoric Archaeology. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 2019 (2), 5-34 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.31600/2658-3925-2019-2-5-34
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