TESHIK-TASH
LOCATION
Cave site 18 km N of Bajsun (Baisun) and 125 km S
of Samarkand, in the Bajsun-Tau Mountains, southern
Uzbekistan.
DISCOVERY
Excavations of A. Oladnikov, July 1938.
MATERIAL
Partial skeleton of a juvenile (8-10 years), including a
broken but fairly complete cranium and mandible.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
The hominid skeleton was reported by Oladnikov
(1939) to have been buried into the sterile deposit im-
mediately underlying the highest and most prolific
occupation layer at Teshik-Tash (Culture Layer I). It
lay beneath the emplacement of a hearth, near the
western wall of the cave. Gromova (quoted in the
valuable English summary and appraisal of the origi-
nal Rusian excavation reports by Movius, 1953) con-
cluded that the fauna throughout the five occupation
levels at Teshik-Tash was closely similar to that typical
of alpine regions in Central Asia today. Movius (1953)
very reasonably took this to imply that the fauna was
of Late Pleistocene age rather than earlier, as favored
by Russian investigators. His more specific assign-
ment of a probable early Wurm age to the site de-
pended on the evident recency of the fauna, combined
with archaeological associations and the morphology
of the hominid itself.ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Culture Layer I contained an unremarkable Mouster-
ian tool assemblage, mostly in siliceous limestone, of
the kind said by Movius (1953) to be typical of the en-
tire sequence of occupation layers at Teshik-Tash.
Hancar (1952) perceived an evolution of the Mouster-
ian through the Teshik-Tash sequence, but this has not
been supported by others. Culture Layer I also con-
tained abundant evidence of occupation, including
hearths, charcoal, “workshop” areas, and broken animal
remains that included occasional pairs of Siberian ibex
horns, lying horizontally. Around the hominid skele-
ton, in contrast, five or six such horn pairs, some un-
usually large, had apparently been implanted vertically,
their points sticking into the ground (see discussion by
Movius, 1953). On the basis of this and other circum-
stantial evidence (no sedimentological evidence for a
grave was found) the Russian excavators concluded
that the individual had been the subject of a fairly
elaborate burial. Movius concurred, but this conclusion
has been contested, for example by Gargett (1989).PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
The juvenile skeleton from Teshik-Tash was described
by its excavator Oladnikov (1939) and colleagues (see
references in Movius, 1953) as that of a Neanderthal
(the most easterly known). Others, including Debetz394