The "Dyuktai Culture" and New World Origins [and Comments and Reply]

The chronology and affinities of the "Dyuktai culture," an Upper Paleolithic assemblage from northeastern Siberia, are discussed. Geoarchaeological and chronometric data suggest that Dyuktai assemblages are no older than the middle part of the early Sartan Glacial (ca. 18,000 B.P.) and are substantially younger than claimed in the Russian literature. Since Dyuktai assemblages have been argued to resemble those of the New World Paleo-Arctic tradition, the reassessment of the age of the assemblage affects ideas about the processes and timing involved in the peopling of the Americas.