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Dzudzuana: an Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Caucasus foothills (Georgia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ofer Bar-Yosef ,
Anna Belfer-Cohen ,
Tengiz Mesheviliani ,
Nino Jakeli ,
Guy Bar-Oz ,
Elisabetta Boaretto ,
Paul Goldberg ,
Eliso Kvavadze  and
Zinovi Matskevich
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Anna Belfer-Cohen
Affiliation:
The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
Tengiz Mesheviliani
Affiliation:
National Museum of Georgia, 3 Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi 0105, Georgia
Nino Jakeli
Affiliation:
National Museum of Georgia, 3 Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi 0105, Georgia
Guy Bar-Oz
Affiliation:
Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Elisabetta Boaretto
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Dating and Cosmogenic Isotopes Laboratory, Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel; Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Paul Goldberg
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 347, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Eliso Kvavadze
Affiliation:
Institute of Paleobiology, National Museum of Georgia, 3 Rustaveli Avenue 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia
Zinovi Matskevich
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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Extract

The report announces the important radiocarbon-dated sequence recently obtained at Dzudzuana Cave in the southern Caucasus foothills. The first occupants here were modern humans, in c. 34.5–32.2 ka cal BP, and comparison with dated sequences on the northern slope of the Caucasus suggests that their arrival was rapid and widespread. The rich, well-dated assemblages of lithics, bone tools and a few art objects, coloured fibres, pollen and animal remains deposited at Dzudzuana through 20 millennia provide an invaluable point of reference for numerous other sites previously excavated in western Georgia. Detailed information has been placed in a supplementary excavation report online. The data support the significance of these excavations for a better understanding of modern human dispersals.

Keywords

GeorgiaCaucasusMiddle PalaeolithicUpper Palaeolithiclithicsmodern humans
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 328 , June 2011 , pp. 331 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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