Dmitry V. Ozherelyev

Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: dmit.ozherelyev@gmail.com

Keywords: the Early Paleolithic, Oldowan, stone industry, typology, technology, the Caucasus.

Muhkai II, layer 80 is one of the few investigated Early Paleolithic sites of Southern Russia and the Caucasus. At is located in the area of medium altitude mountains in Central Dagestan, 1590 m above sea level. The excavations there were carried out by the North Caucasian Paleolithic Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology RAS in 2010–2012. Based on the accumulated data of geomorphologic, magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic studies, the age of the site is estimated at 2.1–1.7 million years ago. The initial publications of the materials were focused on the issues of dating, spatial organization, and characterized the faunal collection of the site. This paper is the first to introduce data on the lithic toolls of the archaeological collection. According to the technical typological criteria, the industry of the belongs to the Oldowan cultural complex and finds similarities among the Oldowan sites in Africa and Eurasia.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630007211-1