The Russian Plain at the Last Glacial Maximum

In the past 20 years the Upper Palaeolithic record of European USSR has become increasingly better known to Western scholars. This development is a welcome one because we must take into account the record of this area (approximately 42% of the European landmass) if we hope to understand past hunter—gatherer adaptations in their full diversity. This archaeological record is also important because this region of the Old World was continuously occupied throughout the Upper Palaeolithic and thus served as a population refugium around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Because this has recently received extensive treatment elsewhere ( Otte 1981 , Praslov & Rogachev 1982, Boriskovskii 1984 , Soffer 1985 , Kozlowski 1986 , Vol. 1, Ch. 11), in this chapter I focus narrowly on the sites dating between 20000 and 18000 BP in the central, eastern, and southeastern parts of the Russian or East European Plain that are found along the Dnepr-Desna and Don drainage systems and the southeastern steppe region just north of the Sea of Azov ( Fig. 12.1 ).