The purpose of this commission is to stimulate and co-ordinate research on the Final Palaeolithic of Northern Eurasia. From a chronological perspective we are concerned with the emergence from an Upper Palaeolithic substrate of hunter-gatherers adapted to life in the more temperate conditions of the Late Glacial and Early Postglacial and their dispersal into previously unoccupied territories. To pursue this aim we have established a multinational network of archaeological and palaeo-environmental researchers dealing with the diversity of man and environment relationships during the Late Glacial and Earliest Postglacial, i.e. the period from approximately 15,000 to 8,000 BP. Given the magnitude of changes in climate, landscape, vegetation and fauna during this period, the Final Palaeolithic cultures of Northern Eurasia were characterized by a variety of adaptive responses, reflected in technologies, settlement patterns, subsistence practices, social organizations and even ideologies. Underlying this regional diversityof specific environmental and cultural changes were the fundamentals of climatic change in conditions that was relatively rapid and extreme and that clearly had major influence on contemporary hunter-gatherer land-use patterns. The thematic focus of our commission highlights all of these research questions.
PRESIDENT: Iwona SOBKOWIAK-TABAKA (iwosob@amu.edu.pl ); SECRETARY: Sonja B. GRIMM (Sonja.Grimm@schloss-gottorf.de); TRESAURER: Mara-Julia WEBER (Mara.Weber@schloss-gottorf.de);
CONGRESSES
"The Final Palaeolithic of Northern Eurasia" - In connection with the XXVIIIth Congrès préhistorique de France in Amiens - May 30th to June 4th, 2016.