2.1 – West Siberia

The authors argue that the beginning of human occupation of West Siberia in the Paleolithic was restricted by its southern part (the Altai Mountains and the Kuznetsk Basin). The advance to plains and initial colonization of northern areas started at the Late Pleistocene, the Karginsky interstadial. Landscape and environment dynamics during the Karginsky, the Sartan, and the Last Glacial periods have been characterized. Human colonization of the majority of the areas lying in the southeastern and central parts of the West Siberia Plain occurred during the Sartan epoch. The chapter summarizes the data on the Late Paleolithic sites indicating their chronology and industry type.