Background

Mokhovo Mine 1 (meaning of name uncertain, possibly “moss,” mokh) is located near the Tom River in the Kemerovo coal-mining region of southern West Siberia. Kuzmin and Orlova (1998:6) place it at 54°40' N, 86°60' E. The site contains artifacts and broken bone 38 m deep in Middle Pleistocene deposits that are overlain by younger units, including the Kedrov geological suite (Derevianko et al. 1992). It was discovered by geologists S. V. Nikolaev and A. N. Zudin, who have spent many years studying the region’s Quaternary deposits (Nikolaev and Markin 1990). Paleozoic rock exposed by the “old Kedrov” river may have attracted Middle Pleistocene people to the locality for its resource of stone for tool production. Additional artifacts were recovered in situ by Sergey Markin in 1998 (Derevianko et al. 1992, Zudin et al. 1983). It had been an open site consisting of mainly bison and human components, which together suggest it had been a kill site, or a location where boggy conditions contributed to the death of various large animals. Some deposits of faunal remains in the Kuznetsk Basin coal-mining district where Mokhovo is located are 1.8 million years old. I. V Foronova (2000:137, 2001b) refers to Mokhovo as a “premousterian” site that is “probably one of the earliest in Western Siberia.” She also reports that damage caused by water transport and tumbling is minimal and carnivore damage is abundant in these deposits (Foronova 2001a). She has identified the trogontherii elephant (Mammuthus trogontherii), wolverine (Gulo cf. dchlosseri), horse (Equus mosbachensis), reindeer (Rangifer sp.), and bison (Bison off. priscus). Bone preservation is typical for the Kedrov suite. They are dark brown in color due to the high iron content of the soil, and somewhat mineralized, with some pieces having caliche-like adhesions. Orlova attributes some bone breakage to human butchering and breakage activity. She emphasizes that two fragments of an elephant long bone have obvious signs of processing. Kuzmin and Orlova (1998:6) list Mokhovo Mine 1 as having a carbon-14 date of30330±445BP. There is some confusion as to how the carbon-14 date fits into the middle Pleistocene context (Derevianko et al. 1990).