Personal ornaments from the Early Upper Palaeolithic deposits in the Main Chamber of Denisova cave (2016-2017 excavations) / Персональные украшения начала верхнего палеолита из центрального зала Денисовой пещеры (2016–2017 гг.). 2017 (original) (raw)

The paper presents the results provided by technical research focused on personal ornaments recovered from layer 11 in the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave in 2016 and 2017. Personal ornaments and bone tools from Denisova cave are one of the oldest and most expressive elements of modern human behavior, known in the Paleolithic of Northern and Central Asia. These items are considered an element of cultural identity and a chronological marker of the first Upper Paleolithic societies in Altay region. All bone tools and personal ornaments come from stratified and well-dated archaeological contexts. As a result of integrated, multidisciplinary investigations – including petrographic, experimental, use-wear and technological analysis – we reconstructed the chaîne opératoire of these non-utilitarian artefacts. The manufacture of personal ornaments involved the use of a great variety of raw materials: soft stones, tubular bones of animals and birds, teeth of mammals, mammoth ivory, as well as shells from freshwater clams. Production techniques employed for manufacturing non-utilitarian objects included several stages: selecting a raw material; obtaining a half-finished product; processing by shaping, scraping, grinding, drilling and polishing. A number of processing methods (grinding, drilling, cutting, polishing), being specific for the early Upper Paleolithic period, were utilized in this industry for producing objects from bone and ivory, as well as for soft stones working. According to their function, the ornaments from layer 11 can be classified into various types: flat and dimensional beads; holed beads; pendants with the circular grooves or with one drilled hole; plaques with two holes. A unique specimen in the collection is a fragment of ornamental ivory diadem (headband). Results of technological and use-wear analysis of personal ornaments from Paleolithic complexes of Denisova cave demonstrate communication of these objects with various functional and semantic systems. The morphology of use-wear traces indicates the use of the majority of Denisova cave beads, pendants and plaques as everyday items – personal wearable ornaments and elements of clothes decoration. The abundance, morphological and functional variability of the ornaments from layer 11 reflect an exceptional diversity of the methods used for personal ornamentation, implying the existence of preferences and traditions in the use of these objects.