Discussion

The overall Afontova Goraperimortem damage decidedly excludes carnivores as having contributed much to the taphonomic condition. Perimortem breakage was extensive and seemingly all done by human smashing of most bones. This conclusion was reached fTom the minimal signs of carnivore activity, as well as with the good preservation, especially so for an open site. The lack of chalkiness to bone surfaces suggests very little weathering in the open, as well as absence of postmortem breakage and very little carnivore damage. Even rodents left no record of their presence, commonly seen in bones left on the surface for several days or weeks. Taken together, these conditions suggest rapid burial that would protect the bone assemblage fTom air and sun weathering and scavengers, possibly by rain puddling and mud covering, clouds of dust blowing off the river banks and terraces that would fall to cover the cultural material. Shallow burial would protect against most destructive processes except for plant growth and root penetration, which was abundant in the assemblage.

The near total absence of carnivore damage, and the associated rich material culture inventory makes Afontova Gora one of the best Siberian sites from which to infer diet and hunting cultural practices of these Paleolithic Siberian hunters and their families. In contrast, nearly all of our other archaeological sites, both Paleolithic and Neolithic, where the hyena/carnivore bone damage signature is markedly strong, raise the question as to how the bone refuse got into the archaeological sites. Were the bones and adhering flesh carried to the sites by hyenas, other carnivores, or humans? Who or what were the primary hunters or scavengers in the archaeological sites with a marked hyena/carnivore taphonomic presence?

We are exploring herein a concept of a northern Eurasian “hyena barrier” or “hyena wall” that, along with cold and other factors, might have inhibited human movement to Beringia before hyenas went extinct just before the close ofthe Pleistocene. The absence of hyena remains in the Afontova Gora refuse, and the general rarity of these creatures in the Yenisei basin (Ovodov, unpublished observations), allows us to speculate that the Yenisei might have been a major route out of Siberia, used by the ancestors of Paleo-Indians to reach Beringia if hyenas had been a migration-retarding factor. However, we do have traces of hyenas in one site we tested away from the river in the region of Abakan. This site is Dvuglaska Cave, which we will discuss later.

While we believe the hyena barrier idea to be original, we recognize that Valerius Geist (1989) earlier proposed that huge Pleistocene carnivores such as the short-faced bear of Alaska might have kept Paleo-Siberians out of eastern Beringia. Like the Siberian cave lion and cave bear, the Alaskan short-faced bear was a formidable creature, but none of these three species were social animals that hunted in packs. One of these larger carnivores could not have equaled the mass of even a small pack of hyenas, let alone the multiple ripping jaws that such a pack would have had. Hence, we consider the hyena

To have been a larger threat to humans than the larger cave lions and cave bears. Fossil evidence for the magnificent Siberian tiger, also a lone predator, is sparse outside of the Russian Far East.

Afontova Gora perimortem taphonomy shows almost no carnivore contribution to the bone breakage, the reason for which we believe was extraction of all nutrients possible. Cooking of these bone fragments with their adhering bits of flesh would have helped extract even more nutrients. However, one burned bone out of 5000 can hardly be considered sufficient physical evidence to infer cooking. How food was prepared by late Pleistocene Siberians remains a puzzle.