Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash) is located in Bashkortostan, the Southern Urals, in the Shulgan Tash Reserve on the Belaya River. Its coordinates are 53°02’ N; 57°03’ W. It is a large karst three-level system of chambers, galleries and wells having the total length of 3323 m with vertical amplitude of 165 m. The karst system is characterized by large chambers and galleries, great dynamics of microcl...

If we accept all of these social, symbolic, and cognitive implications of distinctively Upper Paleolithic behavioral patterns, then the issue of exactly how these patterns of behavior and the implied mental capacities they required emerged among European populations becomes one of the most critical issues in current evolutionary and cognitive research. Broadly, we are confronted by two fairly s...

Humans have cognitive mechanisms that allow them to keep track of time, represent past events, and simulate the future, but these capacities have intrinsic constraints. Here, we explore the role of material culture as an extension of internal time representations through anthropological and archeological case studies, focusing on Upper Paleolithic material culture. We argue that calendars compl...

The genetic origins of Japanese populations have been controversial. Upper Paleolithic Japanese, i.e. Jomon, developed independently in Japanese islands for more than 10,000 years until the isolation was ended with the influxes of continental immigrants about 2,000 years ago. However, the knowledge of origin of Jomon and its contribution to the genetic pool of contemporary Japanese is still lim...

Large river valleys have long been seen as important factors to shape the mobility, communication, and exchange of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. However, rivers have been debated as either natural entities people adapt and react to or as cultural and meaningful entities people experience and interpret in different ways. Here, we attempt to integrate both perspectives. Building on theoretical wo...

New carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values for human remains dating to the mid-Upper Paleolithic in Europe indicate significant amounts of aquatic (fish, mollusks, and/or birds) foods in some of their diets. Most of this evidence points to exploitation of inland freshwater aquatic resources in particular. By contrast, European Neanderthal collagen carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values do...

Many low-income consumers face a limited budget for food purchases. The United States Department of Agriculture developed the Thrifty Food Plan to address this problem of consuming a healthy diet given a budget constraint. This dietary optimization program uses common food choices to build a suitable diet. In this article, the United States Department of Agriculture data sets are used to test t...

Many elements of culture made their first appearance in the Upper Paleolithic. Previous hypotheses put forth to explain this unprecedented burst of creativity are found wanting. Examination of the psychological basis of creativity leads to the suggestion that it resulted from the onset of contextual focus: the capacity to focus or defocus attention in response to the situation, thereby shifting...

A specimen of the murid rodent Nesokia indica has been recovered from a late Paleolithic archeological site in the Sudan. This is a range 1200 km south of the site of any known occurrences, and it indicates a different environment near the Nile River than that which exists at the present time. The late Paleolithic water table is inferred to have been more stable, allowing for permanent moist soil.