Kiik-Koba Grotto, Crimea (Ukraine)


Book Description

This book is an offshoot of the international Ukrainian-German research programme on "Functional variability in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine" undertaken by the Crimean branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Science and the University of Cologne. This volume presents one of several complexes from earlier excavations now re-analysed for publication. Kiik-Koba Grotto is famous for its Neanderthal burials published with special attention to Neanderthal hands in G. A. Bonch-Osmolowski's excavation report. The present volume contains preface, introduction and eight chapters. It starts with an appreciation of Bonch-Osmolowski, the history of investigations, and new analytic approaches to the Kiik-Koba Micoquian flint artefacts. Next are techno-typological data and reduction models of the Micoquian flint artefacts from layer IV. Chapter V deals with the original assemblage of this layer and the Crimean Micoquian in general. Attention is also paid to bone retouchers from the upper layer of Kiik-Koba Grotto and to the zooarchaeological analysis of the large mammalian fauna from layer IV. Ultimately there is an overview of the re-analyses of Micoquian layer IV at Kiik-Koba Grotto. -- Publisher.










Prehistoric Ukraine


Book Description

This volume covers the Prehistory of Ukraine from the Lower Palaeolithic through to the end of the Neolithic periods. This is the first comprehensive synthesis of Ukrainian Prehistory from earliest times through until the Neolithic Period undertaken by researchers who are currently investigating the Prehistory of Ukraine. At present there are no other English language books on this subject that provide a current synthesis for these periods. The chapters in this volume provide up-to-date overviews of all aspects of prehistoric culture development in Ukraine and present details of the key sites and finds for the periods studied. The book includes the most recent research from all areas of prehistory up to the Neolithic period, and, in addition, areas such as recent radiocarbon dating and its implications for culture chronology are considered; as is a consideration of aDNA and the new insights into culture history this area of research affords; alongside recent macrofossil studies of plant use, and anthropological and stable isotope studies of diet, which all combine to allow greater insights into the nature of human subsistence and cultural developments across the Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods in Ukraine. It is anticipated that this book will be an invaluable resource for students of prehistory throughout Europe in providing an English-language text that is written by researchers who are active in their respective fields and who possess an intimate knowledge of Ukrainian prehistory.