UPPER PALEOLITHIC LANDSCAPE GEOARCHAEOLOGY IN THE TRANSBAIKAL (SOUTHERN SIBERIA)

Here we examine land use, mobility, and lithic technological organization (i.e., how tools and their byproducts are used in terms of acquisition, reduction, reuse, and discard) in the southwestern Transbaikal Region of southern Siberia. During the early Upper Paleolithic (40-27 kya), humans positioned long-term settlements several dozen meters above and up to several kilometers away from major streams. By the end of the Paleolithic (ca. 12 kya), humans moved residences often, camping as near the local rivers as possible. Technological organizational studies reveal that tool stone provisioning changed from the early to late Upper Paleolithic in attempts to reduce risk by supplying people with the lithic raw material needed for tool manufacture in new locations. This is especially true beginning just after the late glacial maximum (ca. 18 kya) when microblade technology flourished. Combined, these organizational shifts allowed humans to quickly populate all of Siberia by the end of the Pleistocene and eventually reach the Americas.