The east of the Neanderthal universe: a comparative analysis of Sukhaya Mechetka and Altai Micoquian complexes

Abstract

Late European Neanderthals, associated with the Micoquian techno-complex, spread over vast area from Western Europe to the Altai. There were no sites found in the territories to the east of the Volga region. The key site of the Eastern Micoquian, Sukhaya Mechetka, which was discovered in 1951 in the Volgograd region, was for a long time the eastern outpost of Neanderthals in Eurasia. In the last five years, the results of paleogenetic analysis have confirmed the archaeological hypothesis of the migration of late European Neanderthals, the producers of the Micoquian, from Central and Eastern Europe to Altai. Until then, the genesis of Altai industries was associated with a wide range of European and Near Eastern techno-complexes, and anthropological remains were interpreted more in a Near Eastern context. In this regard, the industry of the Sukhaya Mechetka site, located on the route of the supposed migration of the Micoquians, acquires additional relevance in the research of the variability of the easternmost complexes of this cultural tradition. The attributive and technological analysis of tool kit from Sukhaya Mechetka was carried out and, using mathematical statistics methods, their results were compared with the available data on the Altai sites: Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov Caves. The new data were supplemented by the published materials from the Sukhaya Mechetka site. As a result, high level of technical-typological similarity of the compared industries in the context of primary flaking, bifacial tool production, tool typology and morphology was revealed. The structure of the Sukhaya Mechetka tool kit is closest to the Chagirskaya Сave, which is characterized by a large number of simple side-scrapers. At the same time, the site lacks of high-quality raw materials used to make bifacial items and intensively worked unifacial tools. In the Okladnikov Cave complexes this deficit is less. In composition and morphology of unifacial and bifacial tools, Sukhaya Mechetka is closest to the assemblages of the Antonovka I site and Chagyrkaya Cave. They share similarity with Okladnikov Cave in terms of a significant number of leaf-shaped and crescent-shaped tools. Some new characteristics were additionally determined for the assemblage of Sukhaya Mechetka. It was established that the primary decortications of cores was carried out outside the site. We also reconstructed the stages of production, rejuvenating and reshaping of bifaces on the site.