The Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site (Yana RHS) is located on the Yana river in the Arctic Circle of northeastern Siberia (70 degrees north). It is the oldest known human occupation within the Arctic Circle to date; the next oldest widely accepted site discovered so far is Berelekh, at 13,000-14,000 years ago.
Yana RHS was discovered eroding from a high Pleistocene terrace with a Holocene overwash. The cultural materials were recovered both as deposits in the cut bank walls and as beach deposits in the modern floodplain. Eroding from the cutbank (and examined with a trench) was a cultural layer of artifacts and animal bones (mammoth, bison, and horse), radiocarbon dated to 27,300 +/- 270 RCYBP. More dates on the cut bank walls above the site support a stacked alluvial deposit beginning about 22,000 RCYBP, with a Holocene overwash dated between 6,000 and 3,000 years ago.
Yana RHS Artifact Assemblage
Bones on the floodplain (and thus in secondary context) have been direct-dated between 25,800 and 27,600 RCYBP. They include a partly burnt piece of mammoth ivory, Pleistocene lion and brown bear bones, and horse bones with butchering and/or cooking marks. One rhinoceros horn and two mammoth ivory atlatl foreshafts were also recovered from the beach deposits. The rhinoceros horn foreshaft was direct-dated using AMS at 28,250 +/- 170 RCYBP.
Stone artifacts from Yana RHS include core tools, bifacially-flaked pebbles, choppers, side and angle-scrapers, end scrapers, and a hammerstone. Raw material for these tools is local flinty slate and granite and non-local quartz. Red ochre, bone fragments, and additional flakes were recovered from the excavations.
Bone tools (mostly from secondary contexts) include the beveled foreshafts, and a possible punch or awl made from a wolf metatarsal. Bones found in situ included mammoth, horse, reindeer, wooly rhinoceros, and Pleistocene hare.
The Significance of Yana RHS
Yana RHS is the oldest site east of the Verkhoyansk Range in Siberia, by far, and thus it represents evidence of the possible ancestors of the colonists of the American continents. Before it was discovered, it was believed that the harsh climate of the millennia before the Last Glacial Maximum (ca 20,000-18,000 years BP) prevented people from crossing into Beringia and thus to the Americas. If the dates hold up, Yana RHS is an important piece of the American colonization puzzle.
Yana RHS was discovered in 1993 by Mikhail Dashtzeren and excavated by a team from the Zhokhov-Yana Project led by V.V. Pitulko.
Sources
Pitulko, V. V., et al. 2004 The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum. Science 303(5654):52-56.
Tamm, Erika, et al. 2007. Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders. PLoS ONE 2(9):e829.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
