To the Issue of the Origin of Microblade Production in Tolbaginskaya Culture in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Transbaikalia

Nowadays the territory of Western Transbaikalia is the place where the stages of Early and Final stages of Paleolithic are presented. This is due to the presence of excavated and investigated stratified archaeological objects dated to that time. The sites of Final Paleolithic in Transbaikalia are characterized by production and using in the work of a large number of microblades and small blades. The leading type of cores is a wedge-shaped core in different modifications. The question of a place, time or reasons concerning the origin of microblade production remains relevant for Northern Eurasia. Different elements of the stone industry, which reflect knapping small blades and microblades in early stage of Upper Paleolithic in Western Transbaikal, are shown on the example of archeological materials from the 3d cultural layer of Eastern Complex at the Podzvonkaya site, one of the largest archeological objects referred to the early stage of Upper Paleolithic in Western Transbaikal. The method of forming accommodation zones on the large blades belongs to such elements. For this purpose, part of the edge of the plate was reduced by deliberately chopping of small plates and microplates from it. Archeological materials demonstrate variants of getting microblades in the result of chisel-like tools’ edge damage during the exploitation process and in the result of removing longitudinal ridges by burin flakes. These variants of raw material knapping formed the methods of getting microblades and small blades, but these flake types were used very rarely because Tolbaginskaya culture stone industry was oriented on the production of large blades and tools. The requirement of small blades and microblades mass production arises later and, possibly, forms in the core of another culture tradition-industry of the 7g and 8 layers of multilayered archaeological site of Barun-Alan-1

Archaeology · Flake · Geography · Knapping · Stone tool · Upper Paleolithic · Materials Science · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology · Paleontology