Evgeny Yurievich Girya

Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences house 18, Dvortsovaya Embankment, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation

В статье рассматриваются три обработанные окаменевшие кости морских животных миоценового возраста, обнаруженные в разные годы, но в одних стратиграфических и планиграфических условиях на раннепалеолитической стоянке Богатыри/Синяя Балка на северном побережье Таманского п-ова. Приводится информация о возрасте, стратиграфии и планиграфии каменной инд...

We describe three processed fossilized bones of sea mammals of the Miocene age, discovered in various years, but in similar stratigraphic and planigraphic contexts, at the Early Paleolithic site Bogatyri/Sinyaya Balka, on the northern coast of the Taman Peninsula. We provide information on the age, stratigraphy, and planigraphy of the site, interpr...

Layer II of Kostenki 17 has yielded one of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic assemblages in Eastern Europe. In addition to lithic and bone implements, the collection includes numerous ornaments with perforated holes made from fox teeth, petrified remains and soft stones. This collection of ornaments is unique in both the variety of raw materials and...

In the Late Mesolithic graves of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, Northwest Russia, large amounts of Eurasian elk (Alces alces) incisors have been found. These teeth, for the most part fashioned into portable pendants, seem to have formed decorative sets for the garments or accessories of the deceased. This article examines both the technologies associated w...

More than 4300 Eurasian elk (Alces alces) incisors, most of them pendants, were found in 84 burials in the Late Mesolithic cemetery of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, Northwest Russia. We analysed the manufacture techniques of elk teeth (4014), in the collection of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St Petersburg. A striking observa...

The study focuses on postmortem trepanations of crania from the Early Tes’ (late first millennium BC) burial vaults in the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia. The authors present the results of traceological analysis of more than 140 crania and data on the location, position, shape and size of openings, and trepanation techniques. Judging by the tra...

The paper discusses new trends emerging in traceology and related to the study of a broader range of artifacts made of different materials: from impact-marks on rock surfaces to wooden sledge runners. The authors provide a number of examples when the use of modern equipment allows to tackle new traceological questions more effectively. In particula...

Geochemical analysis of the first obsidian artefact discovered in Belarus reveals its source to be the Trans-Caucasus, rather than the expected Carpathian source for prehistoric obsidian in Eastern Europe.

The paper deals with the preliminary results of the realization a salvage archaeology project connected with the construction of the railway from Kyzyl to Kuragino (Krasnoyarsk Region, South Siberia) in 2012 and 2015. During the exploration of the multicomponent habitation site of Irba 2 the Pleistocene remains were unearthed beneath the Holocene c...

Tooth pendants of European elk, Eurasian beaver and brown bear are the most common artefact type in graves at Late Mesolithic Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov on Lake Onega, northwestern Russia. In one burial of a 20-35-year-old woman, 18 fragments of wild boar tooth pendants from at least five individuals were found. Wild boar was not a regular part of local...

The Horokazawa site locality Toma (HT) is an Upper Paleolithic archeological site situated on a hillside near the Shirataki Akaishiyama obsidian source area, the largest in Japan. Excavations at HT over a period of more than 20 years have produced more than 570,000 artifacts from an area of less than 100 m2. The Horokazawa Toma lithic assemblage wa...

V. Pankovskiy, E. Girya, M. Sablin Distinctions between prehistoric artworks and naturally altered faunal remains in the light of traceological studies Natural (pathological, invasive) modifications and manmade alterations on hard tissues from living organisms are complementary and, while comparing to each other on the basis of the use-wear analysi...

The paper presents and discusses the results of the experimental-traceological schools-seminars, conducted in 2012-2013 at the "Lost World" Ethnographic-Archaeological Park (Rostov Oblast of Russia). A special emphasis is laid on the high efficiency of modern technologies of macro and micro images demonstration. The possibility of simultaneous and...

Археологические местонахождения на Раучуа-Чаунской низменности. Западная Чукотка

A fragment of a metatarsal of an extinct camel with chop marks found in the lower horizon of the Khapry alluvium on the Lower Don is described. The analysis demonstrated that the marks were left by a single tool with a robust and sharp edge (either a chopper or a large fl ake) during the butchering of a camel carcass. The animal belonged to the spe...

The place of the Chertov Ovrag (or Devil's Gorge) site on Wrangel Island, Chukotka, among archaeological cultures of the Arctic has remained unclear from the moment of N. N. Dikov's discovery of the site in 1975. In 2000 we carried out a small project at Chertov Ovrag. The materials obtained permit proposing a slightly different interpretation of t...

A newly discovered Paleolithic site on the Yana River, Siberia, at 71 degrees N, lies well above the Arctic circle and dates to 27,000 radiocarbon years before present, during glacial times. This age is twice that of other known human occupations in any Arctic region. Artifacts at the site include a rare rhinoceros foreshaft, other mammoth foreshaf...

Technological analysis of Eastern Gravettian blade technology