The significance of the specific stone raw material in occupation of middle Selenga by the Paleolithic population

Basin of the Selenga River with tributaries was one of the most occupied region in the Paleolithic of Central Asia. The recent geochemical and petrographic research indicated that rock mass of high-quality cherts from Permian strata crosses the right tributaries of Selenga. More than 70 Paleolithic occurrences are known in the local valleys of the right tributaries of the Middle Selenga. Their lithic industries base on this type of raw material. When the new Initial and Early Upper Paleolithic sites of Khudzhirtyn-1, -2 and Artstyn-Gol-1 were found it gave an opportunity to define the areal of these industries. The new data allow supposing that raw material factor was the one of determinant in the occupation of this region by the human populations.