The Kara-Bom Site

Kara-Bom is a key site used by ancient humans to study Altay. Its convenient location and biodiversity attracted ancient population for many thousands of years.

Exploring this site allows us to investigate artifacts from various Stone Age periods, revealing the sequential population of the site by Denisovans, Neanderthals, and ultimately, likely by anatomically modern humans who almost look like us.

Kara-Bom is one of the oldest Eurasian sites where evidence of the Upper Paleolithic culture has been found. During this period (45 to 50 ka), the site, located in the Elovskaya Depression, was inhabited by anatomically modern humans who brought their technologies and diverse products, such as personal adornments. The collection of stone tools and associated items at Kara-Bom is also remarkably diverse due to the presence of outcrops of easily-worked, high-quality raw materials in the area.

Location:  Russia, Altay Republic, Ongudaysky District

The archeological studies began in:  The site was discovered in 1980 by A.P. Okladnikov

Estimated layers age:  70 to 30 ka

Human species:  Denisovans and Neanderthals, anatomically modern humans

Study history

The Kara-Bom site was discovered during the road construction. A set of stone tools was unearthed after soil excavation. A.P. Okladnikov, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was the first to document the site in 1980.

Subsequent expeditions led by A.P. Derevianko, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (RAS), and V.T. Petrin, Dr. Sc. (History), during the 1980-1990s, further explored the site, bringing it wider recognition. In 2016, new archeological studies were performed at the site to update the information on stratigraphic situation and take samples for AMS-dating (accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating) and OSL-dating (optically stimulated luminescence dating).

Research on the Kara-Bom collections continues to this day.

Most well-known finds

Various stone and bone tools; one of the oldest Eurasian collections of personal adornments.

• Leaf-like Initial Upper Paleolithic Biface from Kara-Bom: Technologies, Function, Context. Problems of Archeology, Ethnography, and Anthropology of Siberia and Adjacent Territories, 2019. (In Russ.)..

• Bone Industry of the Kara-Bom Initial Upper Paleolithic: New Data. Eurasia in the Cenozoic. Stratigraphy, Paleoecology, Culture, 2018. (In Russ.).

• Small-Blade Industries of the Initial Upper Paleolithic at Tolbor Sites and the Kara-Bom Complex. Theory and Practice of Archeological Studies, 2018. (In Russ.).

• Intentional Blade Fragmentation as a Specific Processing Technique of the Kara-Bom Initial Upper Paleolithic (Altay Mountains, Russia). Bulletin of the Novosibirsk State University. Series: History, Philology, 2018. (In Russ.).

• The Technology of Primary Stone Splitting of the Early Upper Paleolithic Industry of the UP1 Cultural Layer at the Kara-Bom Site (Altay Mountains). Theory and Practice of Archeological Studies, 2016. (In Russ.).

• New Cultural and Stratigraphic Classification of Early Upper Paleolithic Deposits at the Kara-Bom Site (Based on Spatial Analysis and Reconstruction Data). Bulletin of the Novosibirsk State University. Series: History, Philology, 2013. (In Russ.).

• Reconstruction of Edge Shearing Options in the Middle Paleolithic and Early Upper Paleolithic Industries at the Kara-Bom Site. Bulletin of the Novosibirsk State University. Series: History, Philology, 2007. (In Russ.).