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Afontova Gora - Афонтова Гора

This important site has cultural ties with Mal'ta and Buret', hundreds of kilometres to the south east. It is on a north flowing river, the Yenisei, Енисея.
The settlement is dated to 20 000 - 18 000 BP, a very cold part of the last ice age, and the northern ice sheet can not have been far away.

View of Afontova Gora

Photo: Sergey Kashtalianov, via Panoramio

Late Paleolithic, 20 000 - 18 000 BP, Asian USSR, Valley of the Yenisei River.

Поздний Палеолит, 20 000 - 18 000 лет назад азиатская СССР долина енисея.

1 - Knives made on blades.

5 - Scrapers.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

2 - possibly an adze.

3 - chopping tools.

6 - points.

7 - awl.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

8 - scrapers.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Afontova Gora, circled, on the banks of the Yenisei River. The major city nearby in the photo is Krasnoyarsk, Красноярска, on the Енисей River.

Photo: Google Earth

A pebble tool.

This rock from the river has been hardly changed, but forms a useful tool nevertheless.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Стоянка Афонтова Гора - The archaeological site of Mount Afontova

1 - Ножевидные пластинки, knives made on blades.
2 - Доьотовидное орудие, possibly an adze.
3 - Рубящие орудия, chopping tools.
4 - Галечное орудия, pebble tools.
5 - Скребки, scrapers.
6 - Острия, points.
7 - Проколка, awls.
8 - Скребла, scrapers.
Камень, all made of stone.

The objects in this image appear to be large scrapers.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Late Paleolithic 20 000 - 18 000 BP, Asian USSR, Valley of the Yenisei River.

1 - Beads

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

2 - Pendants made of pierced animal teeth.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

3 - Worked bone.

(The second object from the left has definite similarities of shape to one of the Mal'ta venus figures - Don )

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Map showing Afontova Gora (27) and Mal'ta (29), both circled.

Photo: Abramov et al. (1984)

4 - beads and/or pendants.

(Note the advanced technique shown in the lower left bead. Getting a hole that size, and leaving such a narrow band around it requires very good control of the material - Don )

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

5 - Stages of manufacture of the beads and pendants.

(… and this shows how it was done! - Don )

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Yenisei River near Afontova Gora

Photo: Ushakov Nikolaus via Panoramio

Late Paleolithic 20 000 - 18 000 BP, Asian USSR, Valley of the Yenisei River.

1 - Needles

2 - Tools for working flint, and for making objects used for hunting.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

3 - 'balls'

(These are rocks that have been pecked into a spherical shape. The one in the middle has an equatorial groove pecked in it. I believe these are balls for a bola, which is a hunting weapon consisting usually of two or three balls connected by cords, which wrap around the legs of the hunted animal. The groove in the middle ball is probably to accept a cord. The others would have had either a net of cord around them, or possibly be simply encased in hide.

It is amazing how much effort is put into items like this. I imagine that if the balls were encased in hide, any old rock would do, but the makers have gone to a great deal of trouble to make the balls as close to spherical as possible - Don )

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

From Wikipedia:

There is no uniform design for bolas. Most bolas have two or three balls, but there are versions of up to eight or nine. Some bolas have balls of equal weight, others vary the knot and cord. Gauchos use bolas made of braided leather cords with wooden balls or small leather sacks full of stones at the ends of the cords.

Bolas of three weights are usually designed with two shorter cords with heavier weights, and one longer cord with a light weight. The heavier weights fly at the front parallel to each other, hit either side of the legs, and the lighter weight goes around, wrapping up the legs.

This is a superbly made modern bola. It is a work of art.

Photo: Paracordist
Source: http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83896

Spear straighteners.

Some of these showed evidence of a secondary use as a hammer tool or as a retoucher for flint knapping.

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

This bone shows evidence of long use as a knapping tool.

(The mark on the left end may have been from repeatedly striking a glancing blow to the flint being knapped, whereas the mark in line with the shaft of the bone looks more like damage from hitting an object at right angles - Don )

Photo: Vladimir Gorodnjanski 2007
Source: The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Near Krasnoyarsk, at Afontova Hill, archaeologists have discovered a baby mammoth jaw and several stone and bone tools of the Palaeolithic era. The estimated age of the finds is about 16 000 BP.

According to Dean of the Faculty of History, Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University, Eugene Artemyev, the artifacts were found on July 21 2008. On the jaw two teeth are preserved, and the tools found were a stone scraper for dressing hides, a stone axe, and a tool of mammoth tusk.

Afontova Hill is one of a group of the four oldest known sites of Upper Palaeolithic man. the age of the oldest layers with traces of human activities is estimated to be 35 000 years old. Archaeological research at the Mount Afontova began in 1884, with the Russian researcher Ivan Savenkovym.

It is planned that a Mount Afontova Museum will be created, which will be used to preserve and display the finds.

Photo: http://lenta.ru/news/2008/07/23/mammoth/

References

Abramov A., Anikovich M., Bader N., Boriskovsky P., Lubin V., Praslin N., Rogachev A., А. АБРАМОВА, М. В. АНИКОВИЧ, Н. О. БАДЕР, П. И. БОРИСКОВСКИЙ, В. П. ЛЮБИН, Н. Д. ПРАСЛОВ, А. Н. РОГАЧЕВ, 1984: Archaeology of the USSR. 1984, Nauka, Moscow, 1984