The Retouchers from the Gravettian Levels in Kozarnika Cave
Résumé
Kozarnika cave is situated in the northwestern part of the lower Balkans near the Danube plain. The archaeological layers are 6-7m in depth (Guadelli et al. 2005; Sirakov et al. 2010). The Kozarnika Upper Palaeolithic sequence presents several phases: the initial Upper Palaeolithic, a very early stage, a middle stage and a late phase of the Kozarnika culture: a sequence of an original Palaeolithic bladelet industry with backed pieces called Kozarnikian. The Upper Palaeolithic sequence yielded 235 artefacts. In the layers with retouchers there are 218, with a total of 35 retouchers, the subject of this paper. Less typical, but noteworthy, are retouchers, the only one type that has developed since the Middle Paleolithic. They are mostly made from large fragments of long bones. The surfaces were often prepared by scraping, which allows the possibility for greater precision in retouching. For the more highly developed phase of the Kozarnika culture, we noted the appareance of retouchers with two areas of use. The final stage of Late Palaeolithic consists of very small nondiagnostic artefacts. The retouchers parallel the very few found in Temnata dupka. Unfortunately, while studying the bone assemblages from Bacho Kiro, Samuilitsa and the other sites that yielded Upper Palaeolithic finds, we couldn't find the artefacts mentioned in the publications.