The word “Straschnaya” in Russian means “terrible.”

The word “Straschnaya” in Russian means “terrible.” It is the name used by local residents for a cave in the Altai Mountains. When the cave was being excavated, none of the workers thought to ask the local people why the cave was so named. Hence, we have no explanation (Okladnikov et al. 1973). According to Kuzmin and Orlova (1998:6), Straschnaya Cave is located at 51°750 N, 83°840 E. It is carbon-14 dated at >25 000 BP (Vasili’ev etal. 2002:521). A. P. Okladnikov andNicolai Ovodov did the first excavation in Straschnaya Cave in 1969 (Okladnikov and Ovodov 1972, Okladnikov et al. 1973, Ovodov 1973a, 1977c), followed by additional stratigraphic analyses by Derevianko and Zenin (1992) and Derevianko et al. (1998i). Faunal studies have been carried out by Ovodov (1973a, 1977c), Galkina and Ovodov (1975), and Ovodov and Martynovich (2004). The cave had been used by both hyenas and humans.

Straschnaya is a horizontal cave, 23 m in length. The cave is located on the right bank of the Tigirek River directly before it merges with the Inya River (the basin of the upper Charysh). In ancient times it was repeatedly used by Paleolithic hunters. The main excavation of Straschnaya was made by Ovodov near the entrance. The test pit went through 9.6 m of loose sediments. The second test pit was made in the back of the cave, 18 m from the entrance. It was dug to a depth of 1.9 m. The first test pit had six levels of loose sediments. The second pit had three horizons. Bones of large and small mammals were found all over the cross-section in varying numbers.

Galkina and Ovodov (1975) reported that Layers 1 and 2, and the uppermost zone of Layer 3 (down to a depth of 160-180 cm fTom the ground surface in the remote part of the cave), were considered to be of Holocene age because of the limited degree of bone fossilization, by the absence of large mammals that went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, and because of the presence of species characterized by evolutionarily progressive dental qualities. Starting fTom the middle part of Layer 3, including Layer 4, the loose sediments of Straschnaya are considered to be late Pleistocene because of the presence of Citellus sp., Marmota sp. with relatively low tooth crowns and primitive molar 3 structure, and the presence of gray voles with features transitional between Pitymys and Microtus and Clethrionomys sp. Their dating inferences were in good

Agreement with archaeological data (Okladnikov et al. 1973), and confirmed by radiocarbon dating based on bones of large mammals. Upper Layer 3 is 25 000 BP (SO-AN SSSR, 785); lower Layer 3 and 4 (depth 4-6 m) more than 40 000-45 000 BP (SO-AN SSSR 786-787).

A comparative study of modern mammals in the local area and those found in Straschnaya Cave, along with pollen analysis made by Novo-Kuznetsk paleontologist L. N. Yefimova, enabled Galkina and Ovodov (1975) to reconstruct the environmental setting of northwestern Altai in the terminal Pleistocene. Straschnaya, being located in the foothills of the Altai, is set in the forested slopes which share a border here with the vast West Siberian Plain and the low hills of eastern Kazakhstan, blanketed with steppe and forest-steppe vegetation. In the late Pleistocene this area was probably covered with forest-steppe where mixed birch, spruce, and pine forests grew in multi-herbal steppes. This inference was based partly on the occurrence of much grass (53-60%) and woody plant (35-42%) pollen in the cave midden, as well as by the existence at that time of such animals as Allactaginae, Ellobius talpinus, and Equus hemionus, each of which inhabited this area in direct proximity with forest species: Ursus arctos, Alces alces, Cervus elaphus, Capreolis capreolis, Clethrionomys glareolus, Clethrionomys rutilus, and Clethrionomys rufocanus. In the final late Pleistocene a drying up of the northwestern Altai foothills seems to have taken place, promoting the development of steppes with cereal/orach/multigrass complexes that are evidenced by pollen spectra with the dominance of grasses (87-96%), and woody plants reduced to 0.4-5.0%. As for mammals at this time, the steppe and meadow (alpine?) species dominate (Lagurus lagurus, Myospalax myospalax, Allactaga sp., Cricetinae, Equus caballus, Bison priscus), as well as mountainous (Alticola sp., Ovis ammon) and semi-desert (Lagurus luteus, Equus hemionus) species.

Forest fauna in Straschnaya’s final Pleistocene days are represented by only a small number of species: Clethrionomys rutilus, Ursus arctos, Mustela nivalis, Mustela ermi-nea, Capreolus capreolus and Cervus elaphus. In the beginning of the Holocene some mammals, members of a general Late Pleistocene terracomplex, went extinct: Crocuta spelaea, Mammuthus primigenious, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Bison priscus. Galkina and Ovodov (1975) concluded that there were no continuous tracts of periglacial tundra-steppe in the late Pleistocene of the western Altai. Instead, there was a diversity of biotopes that made possible the co-existence of species such as Mammuthusprimigenius, Allactaga sp., and Alces alces. For this reason there was no drastic replacement of the open-type vegetation by a forested condition, which did occur in many other regions of Siberia.