European Russia
I have studied in detail two ornament assemblages from Aurignacian-age sites in the Russian Republic: Sungir and Kostenki 17. Kostenki 17, excavated by Boriskovsky, by Rogachev, and most recently by Praslov (Praslov and Rogachev 1982), is located on the second terrace of the Don River. The stratigraphy in this site was very clear and contained buried humic and volcanic layers that are marker beds in the Kostenki site cluster.
The lowermost cultural layer, and that which concerns us here, was found in the upper part of humic level 12. The lithic assemblage, characterized by Upper Paleolithic prismatic blade technology, shows a quantitative importance of burins (48.5% of retouched pieces). Scrapers are infrequent (9.5% of retouched tools), and tend toward steep, carinate forms. There are no backed pieces or Streletskaya points. There is a small bone, antler, ivory industry and the restricted surface area excavated (66 square meters) yielded a quantity of body ornaments. Charcoal associated with this assemblage, which Praslov and Rogachev have labelled the Spitsinskaya culture, has been dated to 32,700+2000,-1600 B.P. and 36,400+1700,-1400 B.P.
In contrast to other Early Upper Paleolithic sites under discussion, none of the ornaments at Kostenki 17 is manufactured of ivory, but rather of fox canines, limestone, schist and marine fossils (for a fuller description and stratigraphic correlation with other Kostenki sites, see White 1993). These fossils fall into two categories of raw material: fossil coral, and fossil belemnites. Only the belemnite beads will be treated here, as they show an operational sequence not unlike those used for ivory that we have discussed above.
There are four belemnite fossil beads. These are spectacularly beautiful in color and translucence, and are easily mistakable for amber. However, in contrast to most of the other stone and fossil objects, the form of these is the result of an operational chain that began with the natural cylindrical form of the belemnites (Figure 12). It is noteworthy that in form belemnites are like mini tusks in that they are pointed distally and have a proximal cavity that is the formal equivalent of the pulp cavity in tusks. These elongated-cone shaped fossils were subdivided into segments by circumincision and snapping. These segments were then split down the center resulting in two semi-cylindrical bead blanks each. It is noteworthy that this splitting-and-segmenting approach is precisely the technique that Knecht (1991) has observed for the reduction of antlers into spear-points in the basal Aurignacian. It is also very similar to the French Aurignacian approach to the manufacture of basket-shaped ivory beads.
Fig. 12: Schematic representation of the production sequence for belemnite beads at Kostenki 17
Three of these segments were then perforated near one end by means of fine, biconical rotational drilling. The fourth was conically drilled from the outside in. The distal and proximal ends were smoothed by polishing, as were the lateral margins. Two different taxa of belemnites are represented by two examples each. The primary difference between them is the presence on one form of fine transverse ripples, which have a remarkable visual effect.
