The Pleistocene Peopling of the North: Paleolithic Milestones and Thresholds Horizons In Northern Eurasia. Part II: The Middle Paleolithic Human Biogeographic Realm

The Pleistocene Peopling of the North: Paleolithic Milestones and Thresholds Horizons In Northern Eurasia. Part II: The Middle Paleolithic Human Biogeographic Realm

N. Rolland.

The Middle Paleolithic record for the “peopling of the North” is presented with tables, a distribution map, chronology, bioclimatic circumstances, and toolmaking repertoires. Salient aspects identify time-series, patterns of adaptive strategies, dispersal “frontlines”, and strategies for procurement of food-animals. They support empirically a model of the human biogeographic “cold space” realm; its bearing on the adaptive horizons of the historical zonation of the Paleolithic culture; debates about the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Eurasia; and antecedents for trends in intensifi cation of Holocene culture in circumpolar habitats, with reference to the Canadian Arctic.

Keywords: Middle Paleolithic milestones, human biogeography, social morphology, occupation “frontlines”, culture historical time series.