Abstract
An
interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of Mongolia’s earliest
prehistory 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 three principal activities
during its 2000 field season in the Gobi Desert: (1) excavations ongoing since 1995 were completed at Tsagaan Agui
Cave, (2) excavations of a buried open-air artifact concentration near Chikhen
Agui rockshelter were carried out, (3) and archaeological survey was conducted
of previously unexplored areas the Orkhon and Selenga river valleys and the
Hanggai Plateau of central Mongolia.
Available chronometric dates for Tsagaan Agui define a sequence of
Paleolithic materials extending back to perhaps as much as ca. 60,000 bp
(Blackwell et al. in press).
Paleomagnetic determinations from strata near the bottom of the cave
sequence reveal reversed (presumably Matuyama [R] chron) sediments. 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 bp.
The open-air lithic artifact assemblage near Chikhen Agui excavated 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 2000 reconnaissance of the
Orkhon and Selenga valleys and the Hanggai Plateau yielded scattered surface
traces of prehistoric occupation that warrant further investigation.
Introduction
From 25 May through 30 July
2000 the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE)
continued, under National Geographic Society support, a program of Paleolithic
field research initiated in 1995. The
preliminary results of the 1995—1998 expeditions have been published as
trilingual monographs (Derevianko, Olsen, and Tseveendorj 1996, 1998,
2000).
Three
principal activities were carried out this summer: (1) excavations ongoing since 1995 were completed at Tsagaan Agui
Cave, (2) excavations of a buried open-air artifact concentration near Chikhen
Agui rockshelter were carried out, (3) and archaeological survey was conducted
of previously unexplored areas the Orkhon and Selenga river valleys and the
Hanggai Plateau of central Mongolia.
A
total of three American, nine Russian and 12 Mongolian participants (including
nine Mongolian university students) took part in the 2000 expedition. This configuration allowed the expedition to
conduct simultaneous excavations at two localities and undertake an extensive
reconnaissance of prospective new areas in the valleys and plateaus of central
Mongolia.
Completion of Excavations in
Tsagaan Agui Cave
The expedition’s priority in
2000 was to complete 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 and 1998, 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 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 has 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, 1998, and
2000 yielding many hundreds of artifacts.
This year, excavation work at Tsagaan Agui was concentrated in the lower
grotto and in the northern portion of the Main Chamber. Sediment analyses conducted in conjunction
with the 1995-1998 excavations suggest that the lower grotto contains
principally materials redeposited from elsewhere in the Tsagaan Agui
complex. Expanded excavations of the
lower grotto this year 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 3,400 stone artifacts were recovered in the Tsagaan Agui excavations in
1995-1998 in addition to perhaps twice that many pieces of débitage and unused flakes. This year, almost 6,500 lithic artifacts
were recovered from approximately 18 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 2000 excavations at
Tsagaan Agui reinforce several general conclusions drawn from analyses of
archaeological materials from the four 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 lithic 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 mammalian and avian 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 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 based on
additional samples collected in 2000.
Paleomagnetic samples collected from the lower grotto are undergoing
analysis in an attempt to further resolve the depositional history of that
accumulation.
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.
In 2000, JMRAAE team members
excavated a buried open-air concentration of artifacts southeast of Chikhen
Agui above a narrow canyon leading to an active spring. The areal excavation encompassing more than
20 square meters that was opened yielded stratified stone tools similar to
those recovered from Stratum 4 in the rockshelter and artiodactyl (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 Central
Mongolia
During the 2000 field season
a 14-day reconnaissance was undertaken of potential archaeological localities
in central Mongolia, focussing on the Orkhon and Selenga river valleys and the
Hanggai Plateau. Occasional surface
scatters of lithic artifacts, some in weakly stratified near-stream deposits,
suggest the regular though perhaps not intensive occupation of these valleys
during the bulk of the Upper Pleistocene.
The predominantly volcanic topography of the region limited the range of
geological contexts in which archaeological materials might occur, thus the
expedition was not successful in discovering cave and rockshelter deposits
containing prehistoric material.
Nonetheless, sufficient surface materials were collected to encourage
expedition participants that additional reconnaissance in the region might
still yield Paleolithic artifacts in stratified contexts.
Conclusions & Prospects
The
bulk of this past 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. The Russian, Mongolian, and American sides
concluded a new five-year agreement for continued joint archaeological work in
Mongolia to commence in 2002.
The joint expedition’s goals
will continue to include the elucidation of the initial peopling of Mongolia
and subsequent population dynamics. The
positive preliminary results of our reconnaissance of ancient beaches
associated with the large, currently brackish lake, Böön Tsagaan Nuur, as well
as the Selenga and Orkhon valleys encourage us to pursue our search for
additional archaeological complexes associated with extinct lacustrine features
and lithic raw material sources.
Results of chronometric and other analyses currently underway will
refine these general goals in the context of strategic planning for JMRAAE’s
2002 expedition.
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