The Lower Paleolithic site workshop Kyzyl-Yar 2 in the Southern Transurals

Abstract

The author publishes materials of the multilayer site-workshop Kyzyl-Yar 2 of the Lower Acheulian epoch in the Irendyk ridge, Southern Urals.The monument is a site- workshop under a rock of jade. The rock has the height from 1.5 to 5 m and a length of 35 m. On the surface of the rock one seas numerous negatives of natural and man-made chips. A sondage has been made at the site. More than two thousand stone products have been discovered: cut-away pieces, chips, cores and tools made of jasper. Cores from horizons 6-10 are amorphous: splits made in different directions along the edges or convex surface of cleavages with natural or smooth strike platforms. On the lower levels there are rough flakes with haphazard and natural sites or direct strike platforms. Most of them were cleaved along the edge core forms or large flakes. In the upper horizons (horizons 1-5) more common parallel or unsystematic cores have been found. The bulk of flakes is triangular, striked along the edge. Levallois flakes have also been found. Among the tools large two-handed forms of scrapers and hewing tools dominate – cleavers, peaks, tsaldi. An important feature is an almost complete absence of hand-axes. Analogies to the monument feature both in neighboring monuments and sites of Acheulean time from the Caucasus (caves Kudaro 1, 3, Tsonskaya), suggesting that the colonization of the Southern Urals in the Lower-Middle Pleistocene had been made by bearers of Lower Acheulian tradition from the Caucasus.