Archaeology of Kolyma and Continental Priokhot'e in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Slobodin, Sergei; Bland, Richard

A comprehensive study of the artifacts resulting from archaeological research conducted by the author and other archaeologists allows several preliminary conclusions on the history of the earliest periods of the Stone Age of the Kolyma and Continental Priokhot’e to be drawn. It can now be asserted that beginning with the Stone Age the upper reaches of the Kolyma were as densely settled by ancient hunters as its lower reaches. And if this area was not the main route, it could have been an entirely comparable one for their movement, which was previously viewed as not very probable (Okladnikov 1947a). What is more, it is on the Upper Kolyma that the most documented and well-dated evidence of such dispersal and settling has been found (at the sites of Uptar, Kheta, Ui, and Buyunda III), whereas on the Lower Kolyma traces of the Paleolithic have not yet been discovered. Besides, the early Holocene complexes there are distinguished typologically and do not have radiocarbon and stratigraphic confirmation (Kistenev 1990). Based on the investigations, a change in archaeological cultures is observed here from Paleolithic in the Pleistocene to a transitional stage and the Neolithic in the Holocene, concluded by the Metal period, whose material complexes are also represented for now only by a stone inventory, though radiocarbon dates attest to their late age (assemblages from the Neolithic and Metal period of the Kolyma and Continental Priokhot’e are dealt with in Slobodin 2001a). Settlement of the Kolyma and Continental Priokhot’e by ancient hunters began at the latest the Sartan period of the Pleistocene and passed from west to east. The available artifacts provide a basis for asserting that these were bearers of a Paleolithic tradition, similar to the Dyuktai culture of Yakutia, the Ust’-Ul’ma (Selemdzha) tradition of the Amur area, the Ushki (Layer VI) culture of Kamchatka, and the Paleoarctic tradition of Alaska.

Archaeology of Kolyma and Continental Priokhot'e in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

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