Turkey lies at the interface between distinctive archeological and biotic provinces.7 For example, the Middle Pleistocene sequences of the Levant and the Caucasus include many Acheulean assemblages, whereas Acheulean handaxes and biface technology are seldom found in the contemprary Lower Paleolithic assemblages of the Balkans. Likewise, areas surrounding Turkey, including the Levant, the Zagro...

On the basis of analysis of ancient DNA from early European farmers, Haak et al. (Reports, 11 November 2005, p. 1016) argued for the Paleolithic ancestry of modern Europeans. We stress that the study is more limited in scope than the authors claim, in part because not all of the skeletal samples date to the time of the Neolithic transition in a given area of Europe.

Slimak et al. (Reports, 13 May 2011, p. 841) reanalyzed the lithic assemblage from the northern site of Byzovaya (Russia) and concluded that it was Mousterian and produced by Neandertals. The previous interpretation of this assemblage as falling within Early Upper Paleolithic variability remains the most parsimonious explanation; pending additional fossil discoveries, there is no evidence suppo...

The complex of Kamyana Mohyla is the westernmost rock art location Eurasian Steppe and largest accumulation cave sites in Eastern Europe. So far it has been believed that contains Upper Paleolithic images as well portable collection resemble instances worldview. Though this belief lacked support archaeological context chronological attribution remained neither proved nor disputed. However, appl...

The Beganchik locality is a stratigraphic sequence of loessic deposits, pedogenic horizons and Paleolithic occupations located at the Kama-Volga confluence. exposed on bluff formed west side an erosional remnant between Kuybyshev Reservoir former channel Aktay River. Although site known for its Terminal Paleolithic-Mesolithic Pleistocene-Holocene transition, evidence older remains fauna has bee...

Franchthi Cave in southern Greece preserves one of the most remarkable records of socioeconomic change of the Late Pleistocene through early Holocene. Located on the southern end of the Argolid Peninsula, the area around the site was greatly affected by climate variation and marine transgression. This study examines the complex interplay of site formation processes (material deposition rates), ...

Radiocarbon dating is a well-established chronometric technique that has been widely employed in Chinese archeology since the first radiocarbon laboratory started operating Institute of Archaeology at Academy Sciences 1965. In three decades studies followed, achievements were made dating, especially measurement techniques, sample preparation, and establishment regional chronological frameworks....

As in Australia, Pleistocene rock art is relatively abundant in Europe, but it has so far received much more attention than the combined Ice Age paleoart of the rest of the world. Since archaeology initially rejected its authenticity for several decades, the cave art of France and Spain and the portable paleoart from various regions of Europe have been the subjects of thousands of studies. It i...