Discussion

The Kurla I perimortem damage provides a remarkably clear taphonomic picture of what happened to the bone assemblage. First, the assemblage exhibits a great deal of human processing by the extensive cutting and chopping, and further nutrient extraction by the small piece size, the amount of perimortem bone breakage, and average piece completeness. The Kurlans’ objective seems unmistakable - the maximum extraction of nutrients. This, in turn, along with bone quality, hints at winter supply preparation (there is nothing in the age, tooth wear, or epiphysis variables that helps or detracts from this suggestion). Because of the very good overall bone quality, we suggest that many pieces in the assemblage were trampled into the camp’s soft, damp soil by humans before ground freezing set, limiting carnivore scavenging. Second, some carnivore presence is recorded in the small amount of tooth scratching, dinting, and other carnivore indicators.

The amount of carnivore presence is like that of Neolithic Boisman II, which we assumed was caused by the Boisman dogs, whose middle-sized bodies and jaws would approximate those of wolves. We propose that the Kurla I damage was done by wolves, unless future regional excavations show that the Kurlans could have had dogs. For the time being we envision Kurla I as having been a repeatedly used open camp site at or near where a number of reindeer and other animals were killed. Sometime after the Kurla people left their Lake Baikal camp, middle-sized carnivores like wolves or small bears worked over the bone refuse left scattered in the camp. After these two “episodes,” very little of the bone refuse remained exposed on the ground surface, judging by the small amount of chalky bone. Embedded in what may well have been permafrost for thousands of years, the Kurla I assemblage remained suspended in as much an inert state as the bones left in the cold, dry limestone caves of the Altai Mountains.