The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic before the Last Glacial Maximum

A newly discovered Paleolithic site on the Yana River, Siberia, at 71°N, lies well above the Arctic circle and dates to 27,000 radiocarbon years before present, during glacial times. This age is twice that of other known human occupations in any Arctic region. Artifacts at the site include a rare rh...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2004-01, Vol.303 (5654), p.52-56
Main Authors: Pitulko, V. V., Nikolsky, P. A., E. Yu. Girya, Basilyan, A. E., Tumskoy, V. E., Koulakov, S. A., Astakhov, S. N., E. Yu. Pavlova, Anisimov, M. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Anthropology
Archaeology
Arctic Regions
Beaches
Bone and Bones
Bones
Brown bears
Carbon dating
Cold Climate
Culture
Emigration and Immigration
Environmental aspects
Geologic Sediments
Gin
Historic artifacts
Historic buildings & sites
Horses
Humans
Mandible
Paleodontology
Paleontology
Plants
Prehistoric peoples
Radiocarbon
Radiocarbon dating
Riverbanks
Siberia
Terraces
Time
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A newly discovered Paleolithic site on the Yana River, Siberia, at 71°N, lies well above the Arctic circle and dates to 27,000 radiocarbon years before present, during glacial times. This age is twice that of other known human occupations in any Arctic region. Artifacts at the site include a rare rhinoceros foreshaft, other mammoth foreshafts, and a wide variety of tools and flakes. This site shows that people adapted to this harsh, high-latitude, Late Pleistocene environment much earlier than previously thought.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1085219