Background

Kurla I (named after a river that flows into northwest Lake Baikal) is an open site 20 km west of Severobaikalsk village, at approximately 55°39' N, 109°21' E. It is one of at least six sites named Kurla discovered in 1975 by Irkutsk geologists. They are located in an area of exposed slope layers that correspond with the 6-8 m terrace of Lake Baikal. Kurla I-III were excavated by Peter E. Shmygun in 1976 and 1977 (Shmygun 1981, Shmygun and Sizikov 1977). Three cultural horizons were identified. The cultural layers produced 54 bone tools, 9770 stone tools, including 45 burins, 40 scrapers, four screblos and screblo-like objects, ten adze-like tools, and stone debitage. The earlier horizon (24 000 BP) had bone foreshafts slotted for side blades; the later horizon (ca. 14 000 BP) had non-toggling harpoon heads. Other details of the Kurla work are in Goryunova et al. (1976), Yendrikhinsky et al. (1978), Ivaniev et al. (1981), Shmygun (1978), Shmygun and Filippov (1982), Shmygun and Yendrikhinsky (1978), and summarized by Derev’anko et al. (1998). The collection is housed at the Irkutsk State University Laboratory of Archaeology, Irkutsk.

Vasili’ev et al. (2002:527) have no carbon-14 date entry for Kurla I, although they provide dates for Kurla III (24 060 BP to 13 160 BP) and Kurla VI (14 150 BP). L. N. Ivaniev and A. A. Khamzina identified reindeer, red deer, snow sheep, roe deer, hare, sable, and rodents in the faunal remains (Yendrikhinsky et al. 1978). N. D. Ovodov (unpublished notes) identified faunal remains from Shmygun’s Kurla I second and third cultural horizons, and the second horizon of Kurla II: hare (Lepus tanaiticus), 334 bones; red deer (Cervus elaphus), one; caribou (Rangifer tarandus), 178; bighorn sheep (Ovis nivicola), 138; bison/yak, one; gray wolf (Canis lupus), one; wolverine (Gulo gulo), four; polar fox/fox, two; Baikal seal (Pusa sibirica), 16. It is noteworthy that Ovodov made these identifications fTom pieces of bone and teeth that were largely whole, whereas he was unwilling or unable to make species identifications for the 72 small and fragmentary pieces examined herein.