The paper presents the results of a technological analysis of leaf-shaped bifaces, brought to the final stage of manufacture, and of the production waste from such bifaces, discovered at the Upper Paleolithic sites in the Altai Mountains: Kara-Bom, Tyumechin-4, Ust-Karakol-1, Anui-3, and Denisova Cave. The key aspect of the study was the technical methods of secondary thinning and shaping of bifaces, traceable on artifacts from the pre-final and final stages of manufacture, as well as on shaping flakes. Such research, based on experimental data, opens broad prospects for a detailed study of the techniques, tools, and skills possessed by the bearers of the earliest Upper Paleolithic traditions in the Altai. The results of the artifact analysis were compared with data from experimental modeling. It was established that a unified combination of sequential actions was used in shaping the bifaces: creating a bevel with small scaled retouch using a mineral hammerstone – retracting the striking platform and subsequently forming the knapping zone (platform isolation and releasing) to execute thinning flakes from one of the faces; this was followed by situational secondary thinning to process the narrowest parts and «smooth out» the faces. Within this operational sequence, pressure flaking technique could be employed. The manufacturing sequence was completed by retouching, which could be performed using a light organic instrument via percussion or pressure. Thus, within the manufacturing sequence for leaf-shaped bifaces, pressure flaking could be applied in a limited manner for specific operations dictated by technological necessity: for continuing secondary thinning and at the retouching stage to form the basal and tip parts of the artifact. The morphological variability of the Upper Paleolithic leaf-shaped bifaces considered in this work may be due to raw material specifics and the technical methods adapted to it – specifically, situational knapping, which is confirmed by experimental observations.

On the basis of the analysis of thin leaf-shaped bifacial points, which are very elaborate and sensitive to the quality of rocks, we reconstruct the adaptive strategies of humans at the early stages of the Upper Paleolithic. Mineral raw materials and their exploitation relating to different resource bases of the central (the Ursul River basin) and northwestern (the Anuy River basin) parts of the Altai region are analyzed. To attribute the rock sources for bifaces, we have compiled a comparative database of petrographic and petrochemical characteristics of artifacts and pebbles from nearby rivers. Chemical criteria were proposed for differentiating rocks, including those that are hard to distinguish, and non-destructive techniques were applied to assess the chemical composition of rocks using a portable XRF spectrometer. Findings suggest that rocks available in the Anuy and Ursul basins met the conditions for biface manufacture. Bifaces from the Ursul valley were made of local fine-grained rocks—felsic volcanic tuff and ignimbrite; those from the Anuy valley were also of local rocks, but of lower quality—hornfels transformed (meta-sedimentary) siltstone and finegrained sandstone or felsic volcanic rocks. In the Anuy valley, scarcity of quality raw material was compensated for by imported high silica jasper-like rocks. Results suggest that the Early Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of the region, when implementing technical skills, showed stable behavioral and technological stereotypes despite habitat change and deterioration of the resource base.

Purpose. The present study is devoted to the analysis, systematization, verification and generalization of data on “Aurignacian-like” bladelet assemblages of the Early Upper Palaeolithic of the Altai. In the regional context, this luminous phenomenon is considered the main component of the technocomplex of the Ust-Karakolian cultural tradition and even a cultural marker.Results. The study was based on the analysis of archaeological material from known Early Upper Palaeolithic sites in the region, published and archival data containing information on the chronology, stratigraphy and planography of the industries. As a result, the data on the bladelet component of the Ust-Karakolian complexes from Altai, their industrial and spatial contexts have been updated and supplemented. Materials from the Ust-Karakol-1 (excavation 1, horizon B) and Anui-2 (excavation 2, horizon B) sites were found to be the reference for preservation and information of this industrial group. In both cases, the bladelet strategy dominates the assemblage, clearly standing out against the back-ground of non-specialized blade and flake production. The age of the industry was determined to be around 37–34 thousand cal. BP using previously published and new radiocarbon dating data.Conclusion. According to the obtained data, the main problems of identification and research of the Ust-Karakolian sites in Altai are related to the peculiarities of the conditions of their formation. They were determined by the processes of active slope formation, which led to deformation, fragmentation or complete destruction of the original archaeological structures.

Purpose. The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of an informative find from the new Kuyacha site in the Peschanaya River valley in the northwestern part of the Altai Mountains, discovered during the survey of the channel alluvium of the left bank of the Kuyacha River in 2022.Results. The artefact under discussion is examined from the point of view of technological and geologicalmineralogical analysis, and its cultural and chronological affiliation within the framework of the Upper Palaeolithic of the Altai is assessed. The analysis of published data allows us to say that the wedge-shaped core from the Kuyacha site is the first expressive evidence of Upper Palaeolithic microblade pressing technology in the valley of the Peschanaya River. For the microblades manufacture, effusive material of local origin with high consumer properties was used, a potential source of which could be the nearest rock outcrops of the Kuyagan Formation along the left tributary of the Kuyachonok River. The utilization of the wedge-shaped core involved several stages from the selection of a massive detachment and the creation of a preform by modifying the base with bilateral flattening removals, to the removal of the target blanks by the pressing method and the subsequent reforming of the core.Conclusion. Based on a wide range of analogies, it was established that similar types of cores were widespread in Altai sites during the Late Upper Palaeolithic.

Purpose . This article presents results of the preliminary analysis of archaeological material obtained during the Kamchatka Paleolithic expedition of IAET SB RAS at the Razdelniy II site in Central Kamchatka. Results. It has been established that the earliest habitation episode of the Razdelniy II site is associated with the complex of the cultural horizon 2 dated 12,900–12,600 cal BP. Horizon’s industry is based on the micro-wedge knapping technology, the toolkit included small bifacial leaf-shaped points, transversal burins, high-shaped side-scrapers, and abrasives. The later stage of the site settlement is associated with the Early Holocene assemblage found at the cultural horizon 1, based on the utilization of prismatic cores for the production of blades, bladelets and microblades. The results of field studies indicate the existence of several vast archaeological sites in the interfluve of the Anavgay River and the Razdelniy Creek. On the Kamchatka Peninsula, the studied assemblages demonstrate full compliance with the materials of the Ushki sites, cultural layers IV and VI. Conclusion . The study made it possible to clarify the cultural and chronological sequence of the settlement of the Razdelniy II site in the late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.

The Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) is one of the most important phases in the recent period of the evolution of humans. During a narrow period in the first half of Marine Isotope Stage 3 laminar industries, accompanied by developed symbolism and specific blade technology, emerged over a vast area, replacing different variants of the Middle Paleolithic. In western Eurasia, the earliest appearance of IUP technology is seen at the Boker Tachtit site, dated ca. 50 ka cal BP. The earliest evidence of IUP industries in the Balkans and Central Europe, linked to the spread of Homo sapiens, has been dated to around 48 ka cal BP. A key area of IUP dispersals are the mountains and piedmont of southern Siberia and eastern Central Asia. One of the reference assemblages here is Kara-Bom, an open-air site in the Siberian Altai. Three major settlement phases are distinguished in the sediment sequence. In this paper, we present the results of new radiocarbon determinations and Bayesian models. We find that the latest phase of the IUP, Upper Paleolithic 1 ('UP1') is bracketed between 43 and 35 ka cal BP (at 95.4% probability). The earliest IUP phase, 'UP2', begins to accumulate from ca. 49 ka cal BP and ends by ca. 45 ka cal BP. The Middle Paleolithic 'MP2' assemblages all fall prior to 50 ka cal BP. We can detect a spatial distribution of dates from the geographic core of the IUP beyond the Altai where it appears around 47-45 ka cal BP. The current distribution of dates suggests a west-east dispersal of the IUP technocomplex along the mountain belts of Central Asia and South Siberia.

Purpose . This article studies tools for stone raw material treatment found in the Ust-Karakol-1 site collection in Altai (excavation area, 1986). Results. We have established that the latest industry of this site, tentatively correlated with the Middle stage of the Upper Palaeolithic, includes one hammer made of the endcore of fine-grained sedimentary rock. We have identified a pebble hammer flake and retouchers made of coarse-grained sedimentary rocks in the Ust-Karakolian horizon of the Early Upper Palaeolithic. The site inhabitants used flattened and end natural surfaces of pebbles’ fragments for retouching, in some cases the base was additionally modified by flakes. We only recorded tools for pecking on the horizons of the Early Upper Palaeolithic Kara-Bomian tradition. These tools are distinguished by the secondary use of cores and technical flakes as bases, the choice of workpieces from homogeneous fine-grained volcanic and sedimentary rocks, and the use of subrectangular sections of the flaked surface with pronounced edges. These tools are characterized by several working zones and intensive modification of the original relief as a result of utilization. Conclusion . We consider the noted features of percussive-abrasive tools at different stages of site settlement are conditioned by technological and raw material strategies of the bearers of the Early and Initial Upper Palaeolithic traditions, their economic and cultural stereotypes.

The tradition of producing bifacial leafshaped points in Altai demonstrates a relationship with the culture and life support strategies of its earliest Upper Palaeolithic inhabitants. Here we present the reconstruction of bifacial technologies, based on the study of published data and archaeological collections, the latest results of geological and mineralogical data and experiments. The application of the well-known techniques of processing thin flint bifaces characteristic of the Russian Plain to the raw materials of Altai and to the local canons of producing bifacial tools makes it possible to reveal a number of factors that have a considerable effect on the morphology of the bifacial end products. We concluded that the transition from the massive Middle Palaeolithic bifaces to the thin and symmetrical leafshaped forms of the Initial and Early Upper Palaeolithic was associated with changes in stone processing. We found that the peculiarities of the Altai raw materials with their specific consumer characteristics and a high level of petrographic diversity did not exert much influence on the techniques of biface manufacture, but had a profoiund effect on the process of secondary thinning. As a result, the finished products turned out to be more massive than those made of flint. The results of the study confirm the need for a flexible approach to understanding the term «thin» biface.

Purpose. Needle cases belong to “passive” bone tools, which store thin bone tools such as eyed needles or awls. Being an essential element of the technology of sewing complex clothing, needle cases and needles act as a marker of technological innovations, the spread of which in the Upper Palaeolithic contributed to the active population of the territory of Northern Eurasia. This study's objectives were to analyse and systematise published and archived data on the Upper Palaeolithic needle cases of Siberia and generalise the available information on the problems of interpreting the considered category of sewing kits, their archaeological, technological, cultural and chronological contexts.Results. The study results clearly show that the finds of bone needle cases have been identified and analysed in the materials of a minimal number of archaeological sites with different chronologies and associated with several cultural generations of the Upper Palaeolithic. Bone needle cases of Siberian sites, separated by hundreds and thousands of kilometres, show noticeable similarities in size, morphology, production technology, and ornamentation methods.Conclusion. Appearing for the first time in the Early Upper Palaeolithic, they are rare in Siberian sites and do not always accompany even mass finds of needles.

We discuss the issues of studying and interpreting hollow tubular bone items widely represented at the Upper Palaeolithic sites of Eurasia taking into account the available information from scientific literature in Russian, English and French. To designate such artefacts, English and French researchers use the functionally neutral term “tube”. The research results allow us to conclude that the category of “tubes” represent a large morphological group of various purpose products. The general morphological characteristics of the artefacts are determined by the specific parameters of the blank used - it has always been the diaphysis of the mammalian or bird tubular bone. The natural form is convenient and self-sufficient and does not require significant modification and specific shaping. Therefore, the set of applied techniques was limited to sawing and cutting. Many researchers noted the uncertainty of the “tube” purpose; it partly stems from the “universality” of their morphology determined mainly by the shape of the original blank. The problem of the functional classification of such products is resolved through analyses of contextual information, considering metric parameters, availability of specific attributes (for example, drilled holes), thickness of the artifact, and even by the taxonomic affiliation of animals or birds whose bones were processed. As a product of the purposeful production activity, bone “tubes” in the Palaeolithic period should not be considered as tools of labor or hunting but were used as auxiliary devices (containers for storing needles or pigments, handles, pipes for spraying ocher) or non-utilitarian items (musical instruments and personal ornaments).

For the first time, quantitative estimates of the carbon pools (plant residues, microbial biomass, and humus) that provide organic matter reserves in gray forest soils depending on the abandoned age are presented for the region. The pool of C-plant residues, which comprises only carbon reserves in the aboveground part of the herbaceous layer and litter fall, varied from 0.3 to 5.9 t·ha-1. Young fallows were observed to demonstrate the highest values. The increase in the age of the abandoned land was found to be accompanied by the decrease in carbon reserves in the plant pool. The microbial carbon pool (Cmic) varied from 2.1 t·ha-1 on young fallows to 5.2 t·ha-1 on long-term abandoned lands approaching the indicators identified for natural cenoses (6-8 t·ha-1). The largest value (25-72 t·ha-1) characterized the carbon pool in the humus, but no regular changes depending on the abandoned age were identified. The type of humus in the soils after abandonment, as well as in undisturbed soils, was fulvate-humate, and the degree of humification varied from "medium" to "very high". This indicates the preservation of zonal features of humus formation of gray forest soils in the region during their postagrogenic development.

The technologies of sewing complex forms of clothing with the use of awls, borers, and miniature eyed needles played an essential role in human adaptation to harsh environments of the Late Pleistocene Northern Eurasia. Classic eyed bone needles were widely distributed during the second half of MIS 3 from Western Europe to East Asia. Questions of where and when tools of this type, as well as other functionally related instruments, arise are the subject of discussions. The collections of the Initial and Early Upper Paleolithic sites of Siberia are of crucial importance in the discussion of this problem. In this study, based on the analysis of various published and archival sources, the authors update and systematize data on the chronology, cultural and technological contexts of the earliest bone needles of the Siberian region. The amount of archaeological and natural science data accumulated to date, the results of the latest interdisciplinary investigations significantly clarify the cultural and chronological attribution of many unique items. Based on broad interregional comparisons, the authors discuss the relationship between the spread of different types of sewing tools, on one hand, and the migrations of Palaeolithic communities, on the other.

The Altai tradition of manufacturing thin foliate bifacial points and ovoid bifaces demonstrates a clear connection with the culture and subsistence strategies of the most ancient Upper Palaeolithic human population of this region. Today, the issues of cultural and chronological attribution and specificity of this tool category as well as the study of its role in the economic and hunting activities of the population in general require profound studies of the primary source base and generalization of the available information based on new archaeological and natural science data. The authors attempt to systematize the collection of the Upper Paleolithic bifaces from Denisova Cave, which is the most extensive and has not yet been the subject of the special study. We identified and refitted 13 bifacial tools of varying degrees of fragmentation from collections from the Main Chamber, the South Chamber, and the Entryway zone of the cave. All products have been defined as bifacially prepared points and side-scrapers of the biconvex leaf-shaped/ovoid morphological group. The working strategy of most bifaces aimed at producing a symmetrical elongated leaf-like shape suggests that the artifacts were possibily used as points. Parallels for the large and small leaf-like forms from Denisova Cave can be found in the Initial and Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages of the Northwestern and Central Altai. Occurence of intact ovoid bifaces in the Denisova collection was not confirmed; all the available fragments of rounded outlines correspond to the basal parts of the leaf-shaped bifaces in morphometric parameters.

The focus of modern agricultural production on reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires attention to newly introduced farming practices, in particular from the standpoint of their influence on CO2 fluxes. Specific features of СО2 emission from soil as a result of short-term summer green manuring of fallow fields (during 35–40 days from sowing to plowing into the soil of Raphanus sativus var. oleifera Metzg) have been studied. This is a non-standard farming practice used in the forest-steppe zone of the Cis-Baikal Region. Changes in the seasonal dynamics of the CO2 emission relative to the traditional black fallow were studied in three-year (2015–2017) field experiments on gray forest silt loamy soil. An increase in the intensity of CO2 emission from the soil surface after the green mass is plowed into the soil was shown for two crop rotations. The total (May–September) CO2 efflux from the soil in the variant with green manure was 1.3–1.6 times higher than that from the traditionally cultivated soil in all years of the experiment. The intensity of mineralization processes on the plots with green manure enhanced by 38–131% in comparison with that in the black fallow. The loss of carbon reached 19–79% of the amount accumulated in the net primary production. The range of fluctuations in the total CO2 efflux from the soil depended on a combination of factors: hydrothermic conditions, the Corg and Ntot content in soil; the C-to-N ratio, the N and water contents in tissues of green manure, and the carbon stock in root and aboveground residues of the precursor. The correlation between the CO2 efflux and the studied factors weakened in the following sequence: qualitative characteristics of the green mass of oil radish > initial soil fertility > carbon pool in residues of the precursor. The results obtained indicate that the application of green manure to the fallow field increases the CO2 emission from gray forest soil during the warm season.

We describe the spatial context, technology, and possible function of serpentine-antigorite artifacts discovered at the Ust-Karakol Early Upper Paleolithic site in the Altai Mountains. The ornaments were made locally, with a single manufacturing process. They were fragmented either at the preform stage or at the stage of final trimming. There are no use-wear traces. The chaine operatoire included the preparation of blanks, biconical drilling, and polishing. Because the material is fragile, drilling ofpreforms preceded their polishing. This approach was also used with artifacts made of other fragile materials, such as ostrich eggshell, widely employed in the Paleolithic of North and Central Asia. Reconstructed techniques of manufacturing serpentine ornaments belong to the technological repertoire of the Early Upper Paleolithic Ust-Karakol tradition in the Altai. The petrographic analysis of magmatic rocks of the Bashchelak and Anuy mountain ranges suggests that serpentine could have been local. The potential sources include gabbroid deposits related to the Devonian and Permian magmatism of the region.

The period of archaeological research of the Kamchatka's Upper Palaeolithic has more than half-century of history. The beginning of the research was laid in 1961 with the discovery of Ushki-I site - the first stratified Upper Palaeolithic site on the peninsula. The work on this archaeological object largely determined the content and scientific problems of Kamchatka's Palaeolithic studies for many years to come. The article presents the main results of investigations of the Upper Palaeolithic of Kamchatka in the key period from 1980-1993, as well as an overview of current issues related to the study of the Ushki sites. During this period, a full-scale archaeological work was carried out under the leadership of N. N. Dikova and M. A. Kiryak to study Kamchatka's Palaeolithic, with the involvement of a wide range of natural-science methods. The data obtained as a result of Ushki sites' research laid the basis for the reconstruction of different aspects of the culture of the most ancient inhabitants of the peninsula, the study of paleoenvironments and the creation of the Palaeolithic periodization of the Extreme North-East of Siberia. Many problematic issues raised in the framework of research on the Ushki-I site, to this day haven't lost their urgency and relevance. The review is supplemented with information about the latest stage of complex research at Ushki and other sites of the Kamchatka Palaeolithic.

The first formal bone tool in the Central Altai of Russia was found in an Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblage at the Kara-Bom open-air site. Here the authors report the results of AMS dating, use-wear analysis, 3D-modelling and zooarchaeological and collagen fingerprinting analysis, which reveal important new insights into the osseous technology of the Kara-Bomian tradition.

The article presents the results of a new research cycle devoted to the reconstruction of stone raw material treatment strategies in the early stages of the Kara-Bomian tradition in Gorny Altai. The study was based on the analysis of materials from the cultural horizon UP2 of the Kara-Bom site (50,000-45,000 yrs cal BP). The study of the industry showed that the primary knapping was aimed exclusively at the production of blades with a straight profile. The blades obtained in the process of bidirectional knapping of flat-faced, cylindrical and narrow faces cores served as the basis for secondary cores for bladelets and tool blanks -retouched blades, points with ventral base thinning, end scrapers, etc. The utilization strategy of flat-faced cores reflects the preservation of elements of non-volumetric blade knapping in the technological repertoire of the inhabitants of the site. The knapping control in the production of blades with right proportions was achieved by combining various techniques of fracture zone preparation, including special one -pecking.