THE NORTH BLACK SEA PREHISTORY: NEW HIGHLIGHTS, REVISIONS AND UPDATES IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS (IGCP610, IGCP521, INQUA501, INQUA IFG POCAS ETC.) (Invited Presentation)

Since late 1980-ies the Prehistory of the Black Sea region, especially of its northern part, was regarded as relatively well studied subject, in frames of which set of key events (like primary peopling, appearance of anatomically modern humans, transition to productive economy and origin of civilization etc.) seem to be well dated and sufficiently correlated with specific features of local technology and material culture. Abrupt transformations in understanding of prehistory of the northern part of Black Sea region have been stimulated by profound cross-disciplinary discussion provoked by W. Ryan and W. Pitman ‘Noah’ Flood hypothesis (1999). As the results, history of the Black Sea basin, particularly, dynamics its shoreline and the level changes, have been recognized as a potent driving force need to be taken into account when reconstructing the human history in this region. Well-balanced geographically and professionally network of representatives of different sciences and humanities formed under umbrella of IGCP 521-INQUA 501 project (2005-2011) has provided a fundamental platform for revision of Black Sea Prehistory chronology and human migrations. Due to enormous efforts of Valentina Yanko-Hombach (the key person in most of activities on the subject), the further IGCP610 and INQUA IFG POCAS projects (2^nd phase, since 2013) gave an opportunity to revise largescale and local human adaptations to global environmental change and highlight their role in transformations of mode of life and subsistence strategies, tool production activities, social networking and other spheres of human history. The purpose of current contribution is to sum up key highlights, revisions and updates which have been stimulated by the above-mentioned projects and demonstrate their contribution to the formation of contemporary vision of the Black Sea Prehistory, which opens wider opportunity for integration of the prehistory of the region into the broader world prehistoric context.