1 Provenience (Table A1.1, site 1). The sample that we briefly examined on August 12, 2006, came from Afontova Gora II. As in previous excavations, it was obtained by Nicolai Drozdov and Eugene Artemmiev.
2 Species. Our sample was extremely broken up by human processing, making species identifications nearly impossible. More than 95% of some 5000 pieces were unidentifiable except for a few pieces of bone and teeth of mammoth, bison, reindeer, and other mammals of the late Pleistocene Arctic steppe (steppe-forest) community. One cave lion tooth was found, as have been others in previous excavations. Since hyenas are a major animal concern of our project, we were especially careful to look for even the tiniest fragment that would reveal the actual presence of this species in the sample. None was found. When other archaeological samples we’ve examined had cave lion, they usually also had hyenas. Auerbakh and Sosnovsky (1924) had better luck with species identification. They reported Elaphus prim-genius, Cerves tarandus, Lepus sp., Alopex lagopus, Bison pricus, Equus caballus, Canis lupus foss., Canis vulpes, Gulo cf. borealis, Antelope (colus) saiga, and Ovis sp.
According to Astakhov (1999:198), “26 animal species have been identified: 30% belong to reindeer, 20% to Polar fox, 11% to hare, and 4% to mammoth.” Ovodov et al. (1992b) found similar values.
3 Skeletal elements. Not recorded.
4 Age. Not recorded.
5 Completeness. Effectively none.
6 Maximum size. Fragment size was generally less than 2.5 cm maximum diameter, so no measurements were taken.
7 Damage shape. Not recorded, but all forms were present, especially flakes and splinters.
8 Color. Nearly all of the 5000 pieces were ivory colored. One piece was black and clearly had been burned.
9 Preservation. While preservation was good, there was much root damage to the surfaces of the fragments. The quality of the bone was universally ivory; that is, it could not be scratched with a fingernail.
10 Perimortem breakage. As for human processing, nearly every one of the 5000 pieces had perimortem impact breakage.
11 Postmortem breakage. None was recognized.
12 End-hollowing. While one piece had end-hollowing, the degree of damage indicated a carnivore smaller than a hyena, possibly a dog.
13 Notching. None found.
14 Tooth scratches. Very few.
15 Tooth dints. Very few.
16 Pseudo-cuts. None recognized.
17 Abrasions. None recognized.
18 Polishing. Similarly, there was very little end-polishing, and no identifiable midshaftpolishing. In fact, there was effectively no carnivore damage to speak of as no tooth scratches or dints could be identified with certainty.
19 Embedded fragments. None found.
20 Tooth wear. Not recorded.
21 Acid erosion. There was no sign of the typical severe hyena chewing damage nor of their distinctive digestive damage to swallowed bone and tooth fragments.
22 Rodent gnawing. None.
23 Insect damage. None recognized.
24 Human bone. Our examination of about 5000 pieces turned up no human bone fragments or human teeth. However, of the past finds, the most important is a fragment of a child’s fTontal bone with adhering nasal bones, the shape of which gives the child a flattened facial profile that is characteristic of modern northeast Asians. On this morphological basis, Russian physical anthropologists (V. Alexeev following G. Debets 1946) have suggested that the Afontova Gora people, if not all Upper Paleolithic Siberians, were Mongoloids (Alexeev 1998). Such an inference should be viewed with skepticism because most children lack nasal prominence until later in childhood. Moreover, unerupted permanent teeth of a child from the Upper Paleolithic site of Mal’ta, far to the east of Afontova Gora, have a distinctly European appearance (Turner 1990a, Haeussler and Turner 2000). Mentioning human skeletal remains is relevant to this brief account despite its title, because in addition to our examination ofperimortem bone damage, our primary objective with this collection was to see if any human remains were in the 8000-piece faunal collection recovered in 2006 at Afontova Gora II. We had time to examine more than half. There were no identifiable fragments of human bone or teeth. This absence continues the mystery of the nearly total absence of human remains in Upper Paleolithic Siberian sites, when these sites have excellent preservation of non-human animal remains.
25 Cut marks. Only six pieces had one or more cut marks.
26 Chop marks. Thirteen pieces had one or more chop marks. Three pieces had both cut and chop marks.
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