The Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia

Vitaly A. Kashin (1946–2010) was involved in archaeology from the age of nineteen. He participated as an employee of the Institute of Language, Literature, and History (Yakutsk) in excavations of all important Palaeolithic sites in the Aldan River basin from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, gaining first-hand knowledge of its prehistory and stratigraphy including controversial issues. In 1991, he defended his Cand. Sci. (PhD equivalent) dissertation that forms the basis of this book. Kashin then moved to the Institute of Humanitarian Studies, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and continued archaeological work in the Kolyma River basin until the late 2000s. Richard L. Bland studied Alaskan prehistory in the 1970s-1990s (PhD 1996, University of Oregon). He has translated numerous books and articles on the archaeology of Northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, helping to bring the rich Soviet/Russian records of prehistory and early history to the international scholarly community. Yaroslav V. Kuzmin has been studying the geoarchaeology of the Russian Far East, Siberia, and neighbouring Northeast Asia since 1979 (PhD 1991; DSc 2007). He has also assisted in translating and editing books on the archaeology of eastern Russia.

Translators’ introduction ;



Introduction ;



Chapter I: Beginning of Palaeolithic Studies in Northeast Asia.Activities of the Lena Historical–Archaeological Expedition.The Period of Initial Accumulation of Data (1948–1959) ;



Chapter II: Investigations of the Palaeolithic of Aldan River and Kamchatka Peninsula.The Determination of Local Cultures and Creation of Regional Cultural-Chronological Schemes in the Evolution of the Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia (1960–1969) ;


Sites of the Aldan River ;


The Ushki Palaeolithic Complex ;



Chapter III: Investigations of the Palaeolithic in Yakutia, Western Coastal Region of the Okhotsk Sea, Chukotka, and Kamchatka.Further Development of Concepts about the Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia (1970–1980) ;


Yakutsk Research Programme ;


Magadan Research Programme ;



Chapter IV: Some Research Problems of the Northeast Asian Palaeolithic ;



Conclusion ;



References ;


Published Sources ;


Archival Materials ;



Index