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2.3 - The Upper Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia

from V. - East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

By
Ludmila Lbova
Edited by
Colin Renfrew  and
Paul Bahn
Ludmila Lbova
Affiliation:
Russian Academy of Sciences
Colin Renfrew
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

The Upper Palaeolithic is the time of the emergence of physically modern humans and the evolution of their culture. It also witnessed important innovations in developing new techniques in the working of stone, bone and wood, as well as the origin of new forms and types of tools, and also of personal decoration and ornaments. This phenomenon can be explained by a process of migration, diffusion and acculturation, and interactions between different populations as a result of changing environmental conditions.

The first excavation of Upper Palaeolithic sites in Siberia was carried out by I. D. Cherskiy in 1871 in Irkutsk, at the Military Hospital Site. Materials from this site showed a high level of development by the ancient inhabitants of Siberia, which seemed identical to the contemporaneous cultures of Europe. Targeted studies of Palaeolithic sites in northern Asia were begun by academic expeditions from Leningrad’s Department of the Institute of Archeology, and then the National Institute of History of Material Culture, under the leadership of G. P. Sosnovsky (between 1928 and 1940), and then A. P. Okladnikov (between 1953 and 1980). Research over the past thirty years has been carried out under the leadership of the Stone Age Department of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography (Siberian Branch of Russia’s Academy of Sciences), under the guidance of academician A. P. Derevianko, and research teams from the major Siberian universities (in Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Vladivostok and others). Modern research is characterised by interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Palaeolithic archaeological sites, with accurate plotting and presentation of the material.

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The Cambridge World Prehistory , pp. 707 - 723
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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