Obi-Rakhmat Grotto

Discovery

Obi-Rakhmat (from the Tajik obi, “water”, and rahmat, “grace”) lies in Bostanliq District on the right bank of the Paltau at about 1,250 m. A team led by A. R. Mukhamedzhanov found it in 1962 during the archaeological survey made before Lake Charvak was flooded. M. M. Gerasimov and Kh. Nasretdinov carried out the first excavations, R. Kh. Suleimanov dug in 1964–1965, and since 1998 an international team led by Anatoly Derevianko, Andrei Krivoshapkin and Patrick Wrinn has continued the work.

The grotto is a large rounded niche facing south, 20 m wide at the entrance, 9 m deep and up to 11.8 m high. Its roughly 10 m of deposits divide into 22 layers.

Finds

In 2003 layer 16 yielded six teeth and 121 skull fragments of a child aged 9–12, combining Neanderthal and modern human features. Dates from different methods range from about 50,000 to over 100,000 years, so the exact age is still debated. Around 90 per cent of the animal bones belong to Siberian ibex and red deer, showing that the grotto served as a short-term hunting camp. Thirty-four bone tools were also found, including one made from a boar’s tusk. Before Obi-Rakhmat, Teshik-Tash cave in Surkhandarya was regarded as the eastern limit of the Neanderthal range.