Prospects of researching the oldest stages of human settlement on the Oka plateau territory (Eastern Sayan)
In the Late Pleistocene extensive glaciers which were formed along the river valleys, are reconstructed for the territory of the Oka plateau located in the center of the Sayan mountain system. In this regard, the question was raised about the possibility of finding buried cultural layers of the Paleolithic era in this territory. Doubts about the prospects of such searches arise in connection with the activity of glaciers, which destroyed the covering deposits in the river valleys. Until the early 2000s, there was no any data on the Paleolithic of the Oka Plateau. As a result of the latest research over the past ten years, the data have been obtained that allow us to positively answer the question of human habitation here in the Pleistocene epoch. Some of this data is indirect, for example, the discovery of an almost complete skeleton of a cave hyena with the remains of mummified soft tissues, dated to the Late Pleistocene. The good preservation of the skeleton with soft tissues was facilitated by the preservation of a stable temperature situation in the cave over the past 30,000 years. The existence of large predators was ensured by a sufficient number of herbivores that could provide food resources for humans. Direct evidences of the presence of a man of the Pleistocene epoch on the territory of the Okinsky plateau are the finds of artifacts. One of the artifacts found beneath the solidified lava in the mouth of a small River Sailag. According to geologists’ investigations, the formation of the lava layer under which the stone tool is buried falls on the end of the Pleistocene. Also on the high bank of the Oka River, a stone scraper was found. The surfaces of both tools underwent severe deflation as a result of wind erosion, which suggests their close age within at least the Final Pleistocene. In the whole, the new data allows us to reasonably assert that the territory of the Oka plateau was settled by human in the Late Pleistocene. In addition, investigations have shown the prospects of searching for cultural layers dating back to the Paleolithic.