The Middle Paleolithic of the Crimea

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With National Science Foundation support and in close collaboration with Ukrainian colleagues, Dr. Anthony Marks will conduct archaeological work in Crimea. Previous excavations have demonstrated the presence of rich Middle Paleolithic industries which contain human remains in addition to faunal materials. However these sites were excavated many years ago and employed techniques which are inadequate by present day standards. Dr. Marks and his collaborators will re-excavate and study seven of these. In particular they will attempt to obtain absolute dates for individual stratigraphic levels and will employ a range of techniques. These include thermolumenescent dating of both burned flint and sediment, uranium series dating and finally radiocarbon dating for younger deposits. In addition to obtaining samples for age determination, excavation will serve to clarify stratigraphic problems and to obtain large samples of faunal and lithic remains which will be analyzed to reconstruct Middle Paleolithic lifeways. Both archaeological and fossil data indicate that anatomically modern humans first appeared in Africa over 90,000 years ago. They later occur in the Near East but it is not until 40,000 or so years ago that they are found in the rest of the Old World. Archaeologists wish to trace this spread because until dates are available for different parts of the world and patterns of movement known, it is extremely difficult to understand the processes which lead to the origins and spread of modern humans. The Crimea is known to contain important fossil bearing sites from the relevant period but the data are scanty and poorly collected. Since Crimea lies near one of the major routes out of the Near East it is an area worthy of investigation. This research is important for several reasons. It will increase the archaeological data base for an important and little known region of the world. It will add to our understanding of the origin and spread of modern humans and assist in the training of Ukrainian archaeologists.