ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the arid Northeast Asian steppe region east of the Altai mountains, between the forested steppe of Siberia to the north and the loess highlands of eastern Asia to the south. The three primary regions that the authors consider are the Khangai mountains in Central Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and the Ikh Nurruud basin, or Basin of Great Lakes, in western Mongolia. As part of the larger East Asian region, the Northeast Asian steppe was a critical frontier of human activity during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods. At the northern extent of the arid reaches of Northeast Asia, the Khangai mountains feed rivers that mostly drain northward as part the Lake Baikal watershed. The discussion of cultural chronology spanning the Younger Dryas is mainly a discussion of chipped-stone tool traditions. Baron Shabaka Well is a terminal Pleistocene site with an assemblage deposited during a time of highly contrasting hyper-aridity and increased fluvial flow-out of deglaciating highlands.
