MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC SITE RUBAN’ IN TRANSCARPATHIA: STRATIGRAPHY, CHRONOLOGY, INDUSTRY
Authors: Kulakovska L. V. , Gerassimenko N. P. , Usik V. I. , Votiakova O. L. 
Published: February 2020

The Ruban’ Paleolithic site was discovered in 2005 by the Transcarpathian Paleolithic expedition of the Archaeological Museum of the IA NASU. The site is located on the territory of the former Zatysnansky chemical plant (Fig. 1b) at a distance of 800 m north of the eastern outskirts of the village of Gorbky, Vynohradiv district, in the Transcarpathian region, in the Ruban’ tract, and about 2 km to the southeast of the Korolevo site.

At the time when the site Ruban’ was discovered, the upper part the quarry wall where the site is located, has been ruined by the quarrying that made it impossible to determine a stratigraphic position of the archaeological layer and to establish the age of the culture. In order to solve these problems, 15 geological profiles of the Quaternary deposits have been set along the less disturbed quarry wall in 2016—2017. The stratigraphic subdivision of the sections, according to the Quaternary stratigraphic framework of Ukraine, and their correlation with the profile of the archaeological site have been carried out that enables to determine the geological age of the cultural layer.

The geological site Ruban’ is located along the paleoslope and, thus, there are erosional brakes in its sedimentary record. The lowermost stratigrpahical unit is represented by reddish-brown soil of Martonosha unit overlain by gleyed loam of Sula unit and strongly dissected by wedges of the Sula cryogenesis. The other Lower and Middle Pleistocene units have been truncated and now they are represented by pedosediments (with exception of the yellowish-brown soil of Upper Zavadivka unit).

Kaydaky unit (the brown forest soil of a warm interglacial climate) is separated from Zavadivka soil by the level of wedges of the Dnieper cryogensis.

Pryluky unit is represented by two soils (pl1 and pl3), separated by cryogenic fissures and, in places, by a thin loess layer (pl2). The dark-brown soil pl1 is characterized by both manganese concretions and thick managanese films in its upper part, whereas the brown forest soil pl3 is overlain by a thin layer of dense iron-manganese concretions (pl3c). This layer reflects unstable hydrothermal regime during the transition from the warm interstadial to the cold stadial climate of the Uday time. Uday unit is represented, in places, by a thin loess layer, which is overlain by brown forest soil of Vytachiv unit. The latter is dissected by cryogenic fissures, filled with the non-soil material of Bug unit. The Holocene unit is truncated in many places but the Holocene pedogenic processes (translocation) overprint the underlying units.

The stratigraphic correlation of the studied sections with the archaeological site (excavation 1) demonstrates that the archaeological layer is located in the transitional bed of iron-manganese concretions (pl3c). According to the accepted comparison of the Ukrainian stratigraphy with marine isotopic-oxygen scale, the chronostratigraphic position of the archaeological layer corresponds to the transition from the end of the MIS 5 (5a) i. e. 74—64 ka BP.

In the industry of Ruban’ site are prevailing the non-Levallois reduction methods of exploataion of Kombewa, centripetal, crossed and sub-crossed cores with a flat working surface. The parrallel reduction system is not typical and random. Blades are practically absent.

In the collection of tool-kit dominated side scrapers, among which there is a series of natural backed side scrapers with a thick working edge, created by 2—3 rows of a stepped scaled retouch (Quina retouch type). Such samples can be attributed to a specific type of side scrapers, such as Quina or Semi-Quina (Fig. 7).

In general, the main technological and typological features of the Ruban’ site industry are closely related to the cultural layer II of the Korolevo I site. These collections can be attributed to the local variant of the so-called Charantienne Techno-Complex.