Dzudzuana: an Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Caucasus foothills (Georgia)

Authors

Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University
A Belfer-Cohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tengiz Mesheviliani, National Museum of Georgia
Nino Jakeli, National Museum of Georgia
Guy Bar-Oz, University of Haifa
Elisabetta Boaretto, Bar Ilan University
Paul Goldberg, Boston UniversityFollow
Eliso Kvavadze, National Museum of Georgia
Zinovi Matskevich, Harvard University

RIS ID

102550

Publication Details

Bar-Yosef, O., Belfer-Cohen, A., Mesheviliani, T., Jakeli, N., Bar-Oz, G., Boaretto, E., Goldberg, P., Kvavadze, E. & Matskevich, Z. (2011). Dzudzuana: an Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Caucasus foothills (Georgia). Antiquity: a quarterly review of archaeology, 85 (328), 331-349.

Abstract

The report announces the important radiocarbon-dated sequence recently obtained at Dzudzuana Cave in the southern Caucasus foothills. The first occupants here were modern humans, in c. 34.5-32.2 ka cal BP, and comparison with dated sequences on the northern slope of the Caucasus suggests that their arrival was rapid and widespread. The rich, well-dated assemblages of lithics, bone tools and a few art objects, coloured fibres, pollen and animal remains deposited at Dzudzuana through 20 millennia provide an invaluable point of reference for numerous other sites previously excavated in western Georgia. Detailed information has been placed in a supplementary excavation report online. The data support the significance of these excavations for a better understanding of modern human dispersals.