Nyapan upper Pleistocene sites in the Northwestern Altai

The article focuses on the results of comprehensive studies of the materials from the Nyapan stage sediments of the Sartan (Akkemian, MIS 2) period of the northwestern Altai. The article aims to present a variety of materials on the environment and culture of ancient population of a stage of the Final Upper Paleolithic in the Altai. The site sections are formed by loamy sediments, often filled with products of bedrock disintegration. The issues of biostratigraphy and site chronology based on absolute age dating and data on the relative position of lithological units are considered. The sedimentation of a significant part of the culture-bearing sediments of the Nyapan stage is shown to be carried out under conditions of diverse open landscapes, where dry steppe dominated. The Nyapan site industries in the context of the climatic-stratigraphic subdivision of the Sartan glaciation contain lithic artifacts of the Final Upper Paleolithic in the Altai-Sayan Mountains area. The petrographic properties of the raw material are defined, and the typological and technological characteristics of the technocomplexes are provided. They are based on parallel and prismatic flaking, including microblade technologies. Various flakes and blades were used as blanks. The toolsets are characterized by a combination of the Upper Paleolithic and archaic artifacts. Different varieties of side-scrapers, denticulated tools, Clactonian and retouched notches, rare points, pebble artifacts, and backed knives made by different ways are present in the complex. Retouched blades and flakes, end-scrapers, splintered pieces with single edge, perforators, and rare bifaces represent a significant number of tools. The discovered materials from the Nyapan stage sediments from sites in the northwestern Altai indicate the continuity and consistent development of earlier regional technocomplexes of the final stage of the Upper Paleolithic of Sartan glaciation.