Palaeolithic reindeer hunting camps from Cosăuți (Middle Dniester, Moldova)

Abstract

Several Late Palaeolithic sites from the Middle Dniester area are characterized by specific artefact associations and archaeozoological assemblages that permit to include them in a particular category of reindeer hunting camps of the Palaeolithic communities. Among the Palaeolithic reindeer hunting camps, the multi-layered site of Cosăuți has a particular importance, since it includes more than two dozens of cultural layers dated from 20 to 14 thousand years BP. Nearly each of those strata exhibits an abundance of reindeer remains that represents up to 90% of the total archaeozoological material. The site of Cosăuți has yielded a variety of hunting weapons (spearheads, darts and spears, and a harpoon) that served for killing reindeer crossing the Dniester during the migration seasons. The geographical position of the site allows to control the part of the river valley where migrating reindeer herds crossed the Dniester and therefore the Cosăuți site had an advantageous strategical position. In many respects, the Palaeolithic site of Cosăuți resembles the location of the hunting camps of the ethnographically studied communities of caribou hunters in North America

Keywords

• middle dniester region
• late palaeolithic
• cosăuţi site
• reindeer hunting camps
• river crossing hunting
• bone and antler weapons