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

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• Nikolsky, P. A.
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• Girya, E. Yu.
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• Basilyan, A. E.
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• Tumskoy, V. E.
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• Koulakov, S. A.
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• Astakhov, S. N.
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• Pavlova, E. Yu.
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• Anisimov, M. A.

Abstract

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.