МАЭ № 6080-27

Upper Paleolithic man from Kostenki

circa 1956

plaster

In 1954, during the excavations of an Upper Paleolithic site of Markina Gora (Kostenki XIV) near the Kostenki village on the Don (Voronezh Province), dating to 33 thousand years before present, A.N. Rogachev discovered an excellently preserved skeleton of a male aged 20-25 in a shallow oval grave. Having excavated the burial, M.M. Gerasimov cleaned and enforced the bones. Judging by the flexed position of the skeleton and by the red paint on bones, the body had been bandaged or tied up and strewn with ocher. There were no artifacts in the grave, but the habitation layer with which the burial was associated contained Upper Paleolithic flint tools dating to the early Aurignacean age − blades, end scrapers, burins, etc. The man’s stature was low − about 160 cm. The skeleton is anatomically modern. The cranium reveals a trait combination peculiar of modern tropical groups − very narrow braincase, low and narrow face, sharp prognathism (forward protrusion of jaws), and very broad nose. This combination links the individual with modern Papuans and Melanesians. Proportions of arms are likewise “southern” − the forearm bones are long relative to the shoulder bone. Gerasimov believed that people with such appearance or their direct ancestors had migrated to Europe from the remote south in the early Upper Paleolithic. Therefore, he accentuated the tropical features of the Markina Gora man, making his hair curly. Recent genetic data have upheld his view: Eurasia was indeed populated by migrants from Arabia, where anatomically modern humans had arrived from Africa.

Anthropological plastic reconstructions, lifetime masks. 19th - 20th centuries