Tools, beads, and migrations: Specific cultural traits in the Initial Upper Paleolithic of Southern Siberia and Central Asia

Abstract

This paper explores the modes of dispersal, variability, and chronology of the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) of Southern Siberia and the northern Central Asia. Several types of tool-markers, a peculiar type of reduction technology and two types of adornments, specific to the area under study, are distinguished. Based on current data, the author concludes that about 45,000 years ago, there was a rapid eastern movement of populations from a core region in part of the mountains of the Russian Altai towards central Mongolia and southwestern Transbaikal. In these regions, about 43,000–40,000 years ago, a second center of a blade-based IUP appeared. It was characterized by specific forms of tools, reduction technologies and personal adornments similar to those in the core region. Thus, the transfer of a whole set of a unified cultural tradition occurred. Therefore, based on the geographic and temporal distribution of tool-markers, ancient populations moved along the most southern of the possible routes, i.e. over the territory of present-day Mongolia and northwest China.