The Upper Paleolithic Stolbova 3 site in the Kuda River valley

The article presents results of a study of the single-layer Early Upper Paleolithic site Stolbova 3 located in the lower reaches of the Kuda River valley 12 km northwest of Irkutsk in the vicinity of the village of Stolbova., Geoarchaeological studies were conducted at the location in 2012-2013 and 2019. As a result of which relative and absolute age determinations of the culture-containing deposits of the site were made. The data obtained as a result of paleopedological and paleontological studies, taken together with absolute C14 dating, determine the age of the site as the Late Karga (late MIS 3) time. The limited lithic industry of the complex is characterized by simple planar splitting of local pebble raw materials in order to produce chips of flake proportions. The stone tool set of the collection is presented here by three burins made on pebble chips, a fragment of a unifacial tool and a flat pebble bump. The strategies of using lithic resources and primary splitting technologies have analogies in the industries of the Late Karga assemblages of the Western Baikal region, namely in the level 2 of the Mamony 2 site, the level 2 of the Gerasimova 1 site and the Spartak 1 site. The materials of the Stolbova 3 site reveal the problems of the industries of the Late Karga period of the Kuda River Valley. The soliflucated culture-containing sediments of the site, reflecting natural events of the past and characteristic of synchronous locations of this time in the region, have sufficient information content at the site, which will allow it to be considered a reference for the Kuda valley in the future. The Stolbova 3 site under study quantitatively and qualitatively complements and territorially expands the range of the known Early Upper Paleolithic archaeological sites of the Western Baikal region, defining the Kuda River valley as a vast and promising territory for further investigations.

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