Kosharyntsi-3 – a New Upper Paleolithic Site in Forest-Steppe Buh Region
Abstract
Most of the Upper Paleolithic sites of the Buh region were discovered in the basins of the rivers Synyukha, Bakshala and Kodyma in the north of the steppe zone some decades ago. To the west and north, in Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Regions (Oblasts), they were represented by a few single flint findings with ambiguous cultural and chronological characteristics. Only one well-stratified site with more or less numerous flint produced items and faunal remains was studied near the village of Semenky in Vinnytsia Region in 1931.
More than twenty new Upper Paleolithic sites have been found by the authors in the course of systematic surveys along the South Buh River and its tributaries in recent years. The evidence collected on the surface of several sites between the villages of Trostyanchyk and Kosharyntsi in the south of Vinnytsia Region contains quite a lot of flint findings. Most of them originate from the site of Kosharyntsi-3, located on a high narrow promontory formed by the flow of the nameless stream into the Buchak river, 0.9 km south of the South Buh right bank.
The site assemblage contains 409 flint artifacts. The following peculiar features characterize them. The knapping technique is parallel. Unidirectional and bidirectional sub-cylindric and bifacial cores with a flat striking platform dominate. The blanks often have a lip – an indication of using a soft organic hammerstone. The assemblage of tools includes microblades, one edge of which is blunted by a small dorsal steep retouch, endscrapers, and burins of various types. In terms of morphological features, most of these findings can be attributed to the Epigravettian technocomplex. At the same time, the assemblage contains several well-preserved long and carinated scrapers, retouched flakes, a series of small cores that mark such a well-known phenomenon in the region as Epi-Aurignacian.
The studied flint complex is very similar to some Steppe Buh sites, in particular, Ivashkiv-6 and Seredynnyi Horb, located about 50 km away in the Kodyma river basin, which is a right tributary of the South Buh.
According to our studies, in particular, work at Kosharyntsi-3 site, the territory of the middle Buh region within Vinnytsia Region was densely populated in the Upper Paleolithic. Therefore, the authors intend to continue studying this site and searching for new Paleolithic sites in the region.
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