• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bering Strait; Yukon; Alaska; Beringia; Siberia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.466.8581

This book is the long-awaited volume on archaeology and paleoenvironment for one of the most important regions in the Northern Hemisphere⎯Beringia⎯which connected Asia and North America in the Pleistocene. Among the previous sources for prehistory and paleogeography of Beringia, volumes edited by West (1996) and Bonnichsen and Turnmire (1999) are noteworthy. However, rapid progress in excavations on both sides of the Bering Strait requires creating an updated compendium, and now we have it in hand. There are 2 major aspects discussed by Hoffecker and Elias (2007): 1) the natural environment of Beringia in the second part of the Late Pleistocene, mainly during about 20,000–10,000 BP; and 2) archaeological sites of the late Middle Paleolithic in Siberia, Upper Paleolithic sites in Northeastern Siberia, and Paleoindian complexes of Alaska and Yukon. Here, I present the view from the Siberian side of Beringia regarding the factual materials and concepts that the authors have put forward. This book contains characteristic features of the modern geography (climate, vegetation, perma-frost, and landscapes) and paleoenvironment (topography, ice sheets, vegetation, mammal fauna, and climate) of Beringia, and information about the Paleolithic sites in Northeastern Siberia (or western Beringia) and Paleoindian sites in northwestern North America (or eastern Beringia). Each