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Science 2 January 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5654, pp. 52 - 56
DOI: 10.1126/science.1085219
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Research Articles

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

V. V. Pitulko,1* P. A. Nikolsky,2 E. Yu. Girya,1 A. E. Basilyan,2 V. E. Tumskoy,3 S. A. Koulakov,1 S. N. Astakhov,1 E. Yu. Pavlova,4 M. A. Anisimov4

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.

1 Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, 18 Dvortsovaya nab., St. Petersburg 191186, Russia.
2 Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 7 Pyzhevsky pereulok, Moscow 119017, Russia.
3 Geological Research Laboratory of the North, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, Moscow 119992, Russia.
4 Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, 38 Bering Street, St. Petersburg 199397, Russia.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: archeo{at}archeo.ru, pitulko.volodya{at}nmnh.si.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)