Findings from the Paleolithic Studies in Siberia

Abstract

It was long believed that Siberia with its harsh environment and climate had been peopled by humans rather late, and that the culture of early Siberian hominins was primitive. Wide-ranging discoveries of the last 3–4 decades, carried out by archaeologists of Siberia, especially those from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS in Novosibirsk, with the participation of experts in other disciplines such as geology, geochronology, paleontology, paleobotany, genetics, etc., indicate very early dates of the initial peopling of Siberia and a new taxon, H. s. altaiensis, which is associated with one of the most interesting cultures in Eurasia and, along with the earliest anatomically modern African humans, H. s. neanderthaliensis, and H. s. orientalensis, had participated in the origins of anatomically modern H. s. sapiens.