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Observations . During the excavation of the multi-layered archeological site of Strelka-1 in 2021 a small cluster of microblades chipped off one core was found within Upper Paleolithic cultural layer. The cultural layer dated about 16 000 cal BP. 12 microblades were found tightly adjacent to each other in a kind of a “bunch”. It is possible that the blades originally were kept in an organic small “bag” or were tied with a strap together. The main part of the microblades conjoins back into two blocks of the initial core. Similar clusters of the stone pieces are described as caches that is purposely hidden values. The lithic industry relates to the Afontova culture which used microblades as insets for different composite tools made of organic materials. The set of the stone insets from cache matches to the term “tool kit”. There are the same tool kits in the Upper Paleolithic sites of the European part of Russia. A number of sites such as Kostenky-1 (in upper cultural layer), Avdeevo, Kamennaya Balka II etc. comprised “tool kits” consisting of stone blades placed into a cultural layer as a cache. Presumably such tool kits were the Stone Age huntersgatherers’ private property. The tool kits were made up shortly after the cleavage of a core. Conclusion . The authors of this article interpret microblade tool kits as a display of the non-utilitarian behavior of Upper Paleolithic man. This phenomenon within very remote territories and in genetically unrelated cultures reflects the general archetype of consciousness of primitive people.
Barkov et al. (Tue,) studied this question.