Abstract
A
multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of Mongolia’s earliest
prehistory, including the application of the latest available remote sensing
technology, has again this year yielded a range of archaeological, paleoecological,
paleogeographic, and geological data that collectively describe a complex,
changing pattern of prehistoric human occupation of the Gobi. The Joint Mongolian-Russian-American
Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE) carried out four principal activities during
its 1998 field season in the Gobi Desert:
(1) excavations were continued in Tsagaan Agui Cave, ongoing since 1995,
(2) excavations were completed in Chikhen Agui rockshelter and sub-surface
testing of a nearby open-air artifact concentration initiated, (3)
archaeological survey was conducted of previously unexplored areas of western
Bayan Hongor and southern Gov’-Altai aimags
(provinces), and (4) ground-truth studies were initiated of remotely-sensed
radar imagery of ancient strand lines associated with the currently saline
lakes, Böön Tsagaan Nuur and Orog Nuur.
Available chronometric dates for Tsagaan Agui define a sequence of
Paleolithic materials extending back to perhaps as much as ca. 60,000 years ago
(Blackwell et al. in press). Paleomagnetic
determinations from strata near the bottom of the cave sequence reveal reversed
(presumably Matuyama [R] chron) sediments, ca. 730,000 years old. Current 14C dates for Chikhen
Agui indicate at least two periods of occupation; one between ca. 8,000-11,000
years ago and another around 27,000 before present. The open-air lithic artifact assemblage near Chikhen Agui tested
this year provides an excellent basis for comparison with materials excavated
in the rockshelter as well as with the rich prehistoric quarry-workshops on the
south face of the Arts Bogd Uul range investigated in 1995 and 1996. The expedition’s 1998 reconnaissance of the
Black Gobi and adjacent outlying ranges of the Mongolian Altai massif yielded
scattered surface traces of prehistoric occupation that warrant further
investigation.
Introduction
From May through August 1998
the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE)
continued a program of Paleolithic field research initiated in 1995. The preliminary results of the 1995 and 1996
expeditions have been published as trilingual monographs (Derevianko, Olsen,
and Tseveendorj 1996, 1998).
Four
principal activities were carried out this summer: (1) excavations were continued in Tsagaan Agui Cave, ongoing since
1995, (2) excavations were completed in Chikhen Agui rockshelter and
sub-surface testing of a nearby open-air artifact concentration initiated, (3)
archaeological survey was conducted of previously unexplored areas of western
Bayan Hongor and southern Gov’-Altai aimags
(provinces), and (4) ground-truth studies were initiated of remotely-sensed
radar imagery of ancient strand lines associated with the currently saline
lakes, Böön Tsagaan Nuur and Orog Nuur.
A
total of six American, 10 Russian and 11 Mongolian participants (including
eight Mongolian university students) took part in the 1998 expedition. This configuration allowed the expedition to
conduct simultaneous excavations at two localities and undertake an extensive
reconnaissance of prospective new areas in the south Gobi Desert.
Continued Excavations in
Tsagaan Agui Cave
The expedition’s priority in
1998 was to once again reinitiate excavations in Tsagaan Agui Cave (N
44°42’32.6”, E 101°10’08.8”) in the Gobi Altai range of Bayan Hongor aimag.
The
dolomitic limestone solution cavity called Tsagaan Agui (White Cave) consists
of a narrow, inclining entryway, a lower grotto, a rotunda-like main chamber,
and at least two smaller chambers behind the main rotunda.
In
1988 and 1989, joint Soviet-Mongolian expeditions excavated a 16 x 2 to 6 meter
trench spanning the drip line along the south margin of the cave’s inclined
entryway (Derevianko and Petrin 1995).
In 1995 we cut back the north profile of that trench an additional 50 cm
and extended it two meters east into the cave’s main chamber. In 1996, we expanded the sounding in the
main rotunda to the east and west to determine the maximum depth of the
culture-bearing deposits and resolve the degree to which post-occupational
roof-fall has affected the underlying sediments. In 1997, JMRAAE’s focus of activity in Tsagaan Agui was to link
the original Soviet-Mongolian soundings of 1988-1989 and our own excavations of
1995-1996 to yield a continuous longitudinal profile of the cave’s main chamber
down to the bedrock floor of the solution cavity. In 1996 and 1997 Tsagaan Agui’s innermost chambers were also
tested. Wood charcoal collected
beneath and in contact with a stone slab feature of indeterminate function
(altar?) yielded an AMS 14C date of 3,820 ± 55 radiocarbon years before present (rcybp),
2δ
calibrated to 2460-2049 BC (AA-23159), suggesting late Neolithic or early
Bronze Age use of the cave’s deep interior, perhaps as a regular pilgrimage
spot by the Buddhist period. Bedrock
and large blocks of dolomite debris occur at depths of as much as four meters
below the present surface of the cave interior. An open chimney in the roof of the main rotunda and the presence
of sporadically active streams within the cave complex itself have allowed
erosional episodes profoundly influencing the composition and distribution of
the cave’s sediments.
The cave’s lower grotto was
tested in 1995, yielding a small collection of stone tools typologically
simpler than those recovered from strata within the cave’s main chamber. Based on this suggestive evidence, more
extensive excavations were conducted in the lower grotto in 1997 yielding many
hundreds of artifacts. This year, all
excavation work at Tsagaan Agui was concentrated in the lower grotto. Sediment analyses conducted in conjunction
with the 1995-1997 excavations suggested that the lower grotto contains
principally materials redeposited from elsewhere in the Tsagaan Agui
complex. Expanded excavations of the
lower grotto this year seem to confirm this hypothesis. The lower grotto appears to be a complex
network of fissures and channels, some of which may well connect directly with
the cave’s main rotunda.
More
than 2,800 stone artifacts were recovered in the Tsagaan Agui excavations in
1995-1997 in addition to perhaps twice that many pieces of débitage and unused flakes. This year, almost 9,000 stone tools were
recovered from approximately 25 cubic meters of sediment removed from the lower
grotto alone, suggesting that the lower grotto deposits likely represent
concentrated redeposited material rather than a primary context
assemblage. While all artifacts were
preliminarily classified in the field, at this writing only a small fraction
have been thoroughly analyzed.
Preliminary data from the 1998 excavations at Tsagaan Agui reinforce
several general conclusions drawn from analyses of archaeological materials
from the three previous field seasons:
(1) raw material appears exclusively local (obtained within just a few
hundred meters of the cave entrance), consisting mostly of jaspers and other
cryptocrystalline quartz, (2) a stratified cultural sequence representing the
late prehistoric/early Bronze Age through Middle Paleolithic has been
identified, (3) tools recovered from the deepest strata consist mostly of flake
scrapers and comprise only a small portion (approximately 4%) of the stone tool
collection from these horizons, (4) flakes were derived from both prepared
platform “Levallois” (sensu Okladnikov
1986 and Alekseev 1990) and polyhedral cores with primary reduction having
taken place outside of the cave, principally at the source of the raw
material. The limestone massif
containing Tsagaan Agui Cave is littered with the waste products of lithic
reduction. Jasper cobbles and boulders
outcrop just above the cave entrance and many are surrounded by large primary
flakes and smaller débitage indicating in situ reduction. Detailed contour and scatter density mapping
of this workshop was completed in 1996 and ongoing analysis of these data is
proving instructive as regards the origins of raw materials encountered in the
Tsagaan Agui stone industry.
The large and diverse faunal
sample recovered in the Tsagaan Agui excavations is currently undergoing
analysis at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg by Professors G. F. Baryshnikov (large vertebrates), A. K.
Agadjanian (microfauna), and A. Pantelyev (avifauna). A wide range of mammal and bird species has been identified thus
far, many with important paleoecological implications, including the Chiru or
Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) which
is currently restricted in its distribution to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,
numerous rodents, and 17 species of birds including Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug), Blue Hill Pigeon (Columba rupestris), Pallas’s
Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus), Horned
Lark (Eremophilia alpestris), and
Rock Sparrow (Petronia petronia).
Six accelerator mass
spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon determinations are currently available for the
main chamber in Tsagaan Agui Cave:
AA-23158:
(wood charcoal from Quadrat A'23, top of Stratum 3, 355 cm above zero
datum):
33,840
± 640 RCYBP
AA-23159:
(wood charcoal from Quadrat A26, Stratum 4, 274 cm above zero
datum):
32,960
± 670 RCYBP
AA-26586:
(wood charcoal from Quadrat A22, Stratum 1, Horizon 3, -334 cm):
931
± 65 RCYBP
AA-26587:
(wood charcoal from gravel layer, Quadrat A21, lowest Stratum 2 just
above Stratum 3, -430 cm): 33,777 ± 585 RCYBP
AA-26588:
(wood charcoal from Quadrat A'21, surface of Stratum 3, -436 cm): 33,497
± 600 RCYBP
AA-26589:
(wood charcoal from Quadrat A'22, surface of Stratum 4; probably derived
from Stratum 3, -390 cm): 30,942 ± 478 RCYBP
One additional infinite
radiocarbon date (>42,000 rcybp, MGU-1449) was obtained using conventional
methods on a wood charcoal sample from Stratum 5, about mid-way down the
stratigraphic section of the cave’s ramp-like entryway. More AMS dates are forthcoming, perhaps
before the end of the year, based on additional samples collected in 1998. Paleomagnetic samples collected from
the lower grotto are undergoing
analysis in an attempt to help resolve the depositional history of that
accumulation.
Completed Excavations at Chikhen Agui
Chikhen
Agui rockshelter, located in Bayan Öndör suum
ca. 150 km west of Tsagaan Agui (N 44°46’22.6”, E 99°04’06.4”), was discovered
in 1995 and tested in 1996. In 1997 and
1998, more extensive excavations were undertaken, producing a thin but clearly
stratified sequence of cultural materials in the rockshelter itself and on the
adjacent talus slope. Ranging from
aceramic microlithic materials at the top of the sequence to Levallois-like
prepared core flake-based assemblages resembling early Upper Pleistocene sites
in Siberia such as Denisova Cave, Kokorevo, and Kara Bom (Goebel and Aksenov
1995), the Chikhen Agui collections may contain technological evidence of the
Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition (Aitkin et
al. 1993; Klein 1995; Nitecki and Nitecki 1994).
Seven conventional 14C
dates generated by the Russian Academy of Sciences and three AMS determinations
performed at Arizona on samples from the upper culture-bearing strata suggest a
range of ca. 8,000 to 11,000 rcybp for the microlithic component of the
assemblage. At present, only one AMS
date for the lower culture-bearing strata is available (AA-26580). This date suggests a much greater antiquity
for the lower horizons:
AA-26580:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Д/3,
-112 cm): 27,432 ± 872 RCYBP
AA-26581:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat E/3, -65 cm):
8,540 ± 95 RCYBP
AA-26582:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Д/4,
-84 cm): 8,847 ± 65 RCYBP
AA-26583:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/2,
-85 cm): 9,040 ± 85 RCYBP
GX-23893:
(composite organic matter, Quadrat Д/6,
Stratum 1, -12 to -21 cm): 6,870 ± 105 RCYBP
GX-23894:
(composite organic matter, Quadrat Д/6,
Stratum 3, -27 to -34 cm): 8,770 ± 140 RCYBP
SOAN-3569:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/6,
Horizon 2, Hearth 6, -36 cm): 8,940 ± 100 RCYBP
SOAN-3570:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/6,
Horizon 3, Hearth 10, -43 cm): 11,110 ± 60 RCYBP
SOAN-3571:
(wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/6,
Horizon 3, Hearth 10, -54 cm): 11,160 ± 160 RCYBP
SOAN- 3572: (wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/5,
Horizon 1, Hearth 4): 8,055 ± 155 RCYBP
SOAN-3573: (wood charcoal, Quadrat Г/8,
Horizon 2, Hearth 5): 8,600 ± 135 RCYBP
These dates provide a basis
for preliminary interpretation of the prehistoric materials excavated in
Chikhen Agui, and two interim conclusions can be reached:
1.
The
microlithic industry recovered in the three upper horizons may be broadly
defined as “Mesolithic” (i.e., terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene aceramic
microlithic, sensu Okladnikov 1986
and Alekseev 1990).
2.
The
large blade complex with Mousterian-like points recovered from Cultural Horizon
4 in Stratum 3 is best considered transitional—perhaps Middle-Upper
Paleolithic.
An additional dozen samples
from Chikhen Agui have been submitted for AMS radiocarbon determination at
Arizona. Results of these tests should
be in hand by early 1999.
After completion of
excavations in the rockshelter itself, JMRAAE team members tested an open-air
scatter of artifacts southeast of Chikhen Agui above a narrow canyon leading to
an active spring. The small sondage
that was opened yielded stratified stone tools similar to those recovered from
Stratum 4 in the rockshelter and mammal (Gazella?)
bones to a depth of at least 30cm. This
locality, reported as Locus 2 in JMRAAE’s 1996 expedition report (Derevianko,
Olsen, and Tseveendorj 1998: 100), holds great potential for future excavation.
Results of Archaeological Reconnaissance in Western
Bayan Hongor & Southern Gov’-Altai Aimags
During the 1998 field season
an eleven-day reconnaissance was undertaken of potential archaeological
localities in western Bayan Hongor aimag and
southern Gov’-Altai aimag, the latter
in close proximity to the Mongolian-Chinese border; the farthest southwest in
Mongolia JMRAAE has surveyed thus far.
Expedition members Derrold
W. Holcomb of Atlanta-based ERDAS Incorporated and Goro Komatsu of the
University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory prepared a series of
high-resolution radar images of the 1998 reconnaissance territory from data
generated by the SIR-C imaging system aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle. These images allowed our team to navigate
precisely with the aid of global positioning systems in areas previously
unexplored by the joint Soviet-Mongolian expeditions. The SIR-C images display both surface and sub-surface features to
a spatial resolution of approximately 20 meters, allowing discrimination of
principal rock types and depositional regimes, including buried stream
channels. This technology has proven
invaluable in the identification of specific areas of archaeological potential
in environments that have been greatly altered since the period of prehistoric
human occupation.
JMRAAE’s 1998 reconnaissance
of the southwestern Gobi focused on the extensive alluvial surfaces of the
so-called Black Gobi (Shargiin Gov’) and the isolated mountain ranges of the
Azh Bogdyn Nuruu and Eezh Hayrkhan Uul.
Throughout this extensive, largely depopulated, territory the SIR-C
images reveal buried drainages and limestone outcrops that, upon ground
examination, yielded surface traces of prehistoric human occupation, including
typologically early Paleolithic stone tools such as large bifaces recovered
near Shorvog Toirom in Gov’-Altai aimag. Logistical considerations (inclement
weather, locally unavailable water and fuel) prevented us from investigating
reports of a large cave in the Eezh Hayrkhan Uul.
Archaeological and Paleogeographical Reconnaissance
in the Valley of Lakes
In
June 1998 JMRAAE members devoted a week to the reconnaissance of ancient
beaches associated with the currently saline lakes, Orog Nuur and Böön Tsagaan
Nuur in Bayan Hongor aimag. Ground-penetrating Shuttle Imaging Radar
provided key evidence of partially buried strand lines, the extent and
configuration of which were confirmed on the ground. The Gobi’s Valley of Lakes has long been known as a potentially
rich region for prehistoric remains but the limited previous reconnaissance of
the region has focused exclusively on archaeological materials in association
with easily visible lake features of the valley’s several major saline
lakes. The application of SIR-C imagery
this past summer allowed us to trace strand lines with current surface relief
of 1-2 meters over much larger areas as well as identify previously unrecorded
beach features invisible on the surface.
Although scattered artifacts representing Paleolithic through Historic
activity was found in association with these ancient lake stands, time
constraints prevented us from conclusively determining the extent to which
these archaeological remains are more than mere surface occurrences.
Conclusions & Prospects
The
bulk of this summer’s archaeological and other collections have been
transported to Novosibirsk, Russia and Tucson, Arizona where better facilities
than those currently available in Ulaanbaatar will allow artifacts and other
samples to be thoroughly analyzed before our next field season in 1999.
The joint expedition’s goals
for 1999 include continued excavation, possibly to completion, of Tsagaan
Agui’s main chamber and lower grotto as well as more extensive excavation of
the open-air buried complex (“Locus 2”) near Chikhen Agui rockshelter. The very positive preliminary results of our
reconnaissance of ancient beaches associated with Orog Nuur and Böön Tsagaan
Nuur encourage us to pursue our search for additional archaeological complexes
associated with those extinct lake features in 1999. The report of a large cave in the isolated Eezh Hayrkhan Uul
range will be investigated in 1999 for potential archaeological
significance. Results of chronometric
and other analyses currently underway will refine these general goals in the
context of strategic planning for JMRAAE’s 1999 expedition as well as forming
the basis for the extension of our current trilateral research agreement
(1995-1999) for an additional five years to begin in 2000. Expedition co-leader Olsen’s May 1998
election as one of less than a dozen foreign Academicians of the Mongolian
Academy of Humanitarian Sciences bodes well for the continued successful
implementation of JMRAAE’s research design.
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