The radiocarbon chronology of Shan-Koba rock-shelter, a Late Palaeolithic and mesolithic sequence in the Crimean mountains (Ukraine)

The radiocarbon dates recently oobtained from the sequence of Shan-Koba rock-shelter in the mountains of Crimea are discussed in thie apper. The results indicate that the site was settled from the ned of the glacial period up to the end of the Mesolithic, although in a non-continuous way

This paper presents a new series of AMS dates from the rockshelter of Shan-Koba in the Crimean mountains (Ukraine). Four bone samples were selected at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), and AMS-dated at Groningen Isotopic Laboratory (Holland). The results show that the shelter was not “continuously” settled, as suggested by the excavators. In contrast they indicate that it was inhabited in well-defined periods between the end of the Palaeolithic (Allerød interstadial) and the end of the Mesolithic (Atlantic). Together with other radiocarbon dates recently obtained from the same sequence, as well as from Laspi 7 and Mirne, they help refine the absolute chronology of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene peopling of the north-western Black Sea region, and contribute to the study of the environmental and cultural changes that took place in the same territory at the boundary between the end of the Palaeolithic and the Atlantic climatic periods.