Siberia at the Last Glacial Maximum: Environment and Archaeology

This article focuses on the presence of humans in Siberia and the Russian Far East at the coldest time of the Late Pleistocene, called the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and dated to c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp. Reconstruction of the LGM environment of Siberia, based on the latest models and compilations, provides a background for human existence in this region. Most of Siberia and the Russian Far East at c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp was covered by tundra and cool steppe, with some forest formations in the river valleys. Climate was much colder and drier than it is today. Eighteen Upper Paleolithic sites in Siberia are radiocarbon dated strictly to the LGM, and at least six of them, located in southern parts of western and eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, have solid evidence of occupation during that time span. It seems clear that southern Siberia was populated by humans even at the height of the LGM, and that there was no dramatic decline or complete disappearance of humans in Siberia at that time. The degree of human adaptation to periglacial landscapes in the mid-Upper Paleolithic of northern Eurasia was quite high; humans coped with the cold and dry environmental conditions using microblade technology, artificial shelters, tailored clothes, and megafaunal bones as fuel. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Possible evidence of mammoth hunting during the Epigravettian at Yudinovo, Russian Plain

Whether or not mammoth hunting was practised during the Late Palaeolithic has been a controversial issue ever since large accumulations of woolly mammoth bones associated with prehistoric artefacts were discovered more than 100 years ago. Detailed taphonomic and palaeobiological analyses of the mammoth bone complexes from the Epigravettian Yudinovo site in the Russian Plain were carried out. The combination of the homogeneous weathering rate of the mammoth bones, the isolated state of most of the skeletal elements, the restricted spatial range of the carnivore gnawing traces, the breakage pattern of the skulls and long bones, the sex ratio, the small body size of the adult mammoths, the age profile (with an important frequency of prime-aged cows), and the large number of individuals, suggest that the bone complexes at Yudinovo were constructed from body parts and bones that were extracted from freshly killed mammoths and that mammoth hunting was practised at this site during the Epigravettian.     

防疫还是排华？——1911年俄国远东地区大规模驱逐华侨事件研究

论文介绍了1911年俄国远东地区当局以＂防疫需要＂为名大规模驱逐华侨和限制中国人入境等排华事件的主要过程,分析了这一事件背后更深层的原因。认为当时华侨在俄远东地区的广泛存在,引发了俄国国内一部分政治势力在政治、国防方面的担忧和恐慌,便以＂防疫＂为名,以＂排华＂为实制造了这一标志着自19世纪60年代以来俄国境内排华活动达到高潮的事件。在此次事件中,中国政府努力对难民进行了安置,并进行外交交涉,但成效不彰。     

The Booming Russo-Japanese Economic Relations

A noted Japanese economist analyzes the history, present status, and future prospects for Russo-Japanese economic relations. The author demonstrates that the boom in trade between the two countries in the 2000s is unprecedented, ending the stagnation in bilateral trade that began in the early 1980s, when the era of large-scale Siberian resource development projects came to an end. He argues that underlying the current boom is an eastward shift in the Russian economy, characterized by its energy and investment policies as well as foreign economic relations. The paper considers in detail two important factors supporting this boom: (1) Japan’s exports of automobiles to Russia; and (2) Russia’s exports of oil and gas to Japan. He concludes with a guardedly optimistic prognosis suggesting growth in the bilateral economic relations on the grounds of the continuing eastward shift of the Russian economy and a marked correspondence between the demand and supply of the two countries. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F140, O520, P280, Q430. 7 figures, 4 tables, 50 references.     

Early Upper Paleolithic industries of Eastern Europe

Early Upper Paleolithic sites are known in various parts of Eastern Europe, but the two main concentrations of them are the Prut-Dniester basin and the middle Don. The flint industries are divided into archaeological cultures (cultural traditions), of which some show clear archaic features (Kostenki-Streletsian, Gorodtsovian, Brynzenian, etc.), while others have no Mousteroid characteristics (Spitsynian, Telmanian, etc.). Both types of culture coexisted throughout the Early Upper Paleolithic. In some cases, it is possible to trace genetic links between archaeological cultures and to follow the transition between the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic. The radiocarbon age of the oldest Upper Paleolithic sites in the Russian Plain is about 40,000 B.P., but some sites may be older. The Early Upper Paleolithic ended about 24,000–23,000 B.P. In the Crimea, the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition appears to have taken place at about 20,000–18,000 B.P.     

„Fremde Körperwelten”︁. Russische Anthropologie und Medizin im kolonialen Diskurs des ausgehenden Zarenreiches

?Exotic Bodies”?: Russian Anthropology and Medicine in the Colonial Discours of Late Imperial Russia. In the nineteenth century Russian anthropologists adopted Western theories on the biological superiority of the white man in order to justify Russian colonization at the Asiatic periphery. After the Great Reforms the imperial process of acculturation was discussed in the context of modernization that also touched the institutionalization of colonial medicine. Whereas Russian armchair anthropologists were operating with racial idioms, physicians as practitioners on the colonial spot were not receptive to the ideology of “white man's burden”. From experience with the socioeconomic backwardness of Russia's Asiatic periphery physicians stood up for the vital rights of the indigenous population in the colonial Public Health. With deep respect for indigenous medicine Russian physicians were not advocates of Russian colonial expansion and racial discrimination that made them different to their Western colleagues. On the basis of Russian nineteenth century medical literature and Siberian archival sources this paper outlines the critical reflections of Russian physicians on Tsarist colonialism     

Imperial nationalism as the driver behind Russia's invasion of Ukraine

The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine are to be found in two areas. The first is the revival of Tsarist imperial nationalist and White Russian émigré nationalist denials of the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Russian imperial nationalists believe the eastern Slavs constitute a pan Russian nation of Great Russians, Little Russians and White Russian branches of one Russian nation. The second is the cult of the Great Patriotic War and Joseph Stalin and the revival of Soviet era discourse on Ukrainian Nazis (i.e., nationalists). A Ukrainian nationalist in the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin's Russia is any Ukrainian who seeks a future for his/her country outside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Russian World and who upholds an ethnic Ukrainian (rather than a Little Russian) identity. The Russian World is the new core of the Eurasian Economic Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin's alternative to the EU's Eastern Partnership. In the contemporary domain, Ukrainian nationalists are Nazi's irrespective of their language preference or political beliefs and if they do not accept they are Little Russians. Putin's invasion goal of denazification is a genocidal goal to eradicate the ‘anti-Russia’ that has allegedly been nurtured by Ukrainian nationalists and the West.     

Vertebrate Animal Remains from Prehistoric and Medieval Settlements in Primorye (Russian Far East)

A review of zooarchaeological research is presented for one of the best-studied areas of the Russian Far East, Primorye (Maritime) Province. The faunal remains, including mammals, birds and fish, were derived from archaeological contexts ranging from the Upper Palaeolithic, ca. 33 000 years ago, to the Middle Ages, twelfth to thirteenth centuries AD . Among the wild species, hoofed animals, wild boar, and bears are the most common. Domesticated animals are represented mostly by pig and dog. At the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, ca. 10 000–12 000 years ago, some species, such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and bison, became extinct. Since the Middle Holocene, ca. 7000 years ago, the faunal complexes became of modern composition. The finding of bones of domesticated animals in the Bronze Age, dated ca. 2800–3200 years ago, allows the correlation of the emergence of livestock in Primorye with cultural influences from northern China. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Osteoarchaeol., 7 : 172–180 (1997) No. of Figures: 2. No. of Tables: 3. No. of References: 37.     

Geopolitics,transnational solidarity or diaspora nationalism? The global career of M.N. Roy, 1915–1930

This article examines the global travels and anti-colonial thought of the Indian revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy. It focuses particularly on his little explored stay in revolutionary Mexico, where he became a founder of the Mexican Communist Party in 1919. Drawing on archival sources from various countries and Roy's own writings, the article situates Roy's exploits somewhere between a global anti-colonialism, transnational solidarity and diasporic nationalism. It explores particularly the possibilities and the limits of an image of Asia and Latin America as regions united in their oppression by imperialism, and warranting shared anti-colonial strategies in the framework of international Communism.     

Contesting Putin's nation‐building: the ‘Muslim other’ and the challenge of the Russian ethno‐cultural alternative

This article explains the crystallisation of a new Russian national discourse, shaped by a challenge posed to Putin's statist non‐ethnic national model by a popularly formed ethno‐cultural alternative, constructed through negation of the ‘Muslim other’. The article describes this new and previously overlooked phenomenon of Russian nationalism and explicates the social mechanism behind its formation. The article concludes that when rampant corruption exists, generating a breakdown of legal order, the ‘other’ is defined through behaviour that deviates from accepted local norms, while the contrasting normative ‘general public’ is defined as ‘Russian’. Such group definitions mean that the current process of Russian grass‐roots exclusive national consolidation is based predominantly on culturally based behavioural codes, rather than on mere ethnic or religious affiliation, as is widely believed. Additionally, a conceptual landmark discourse shift from the question of Russia's mere plausibility as a nation‐state to a focus on its ongoing definition is demonstrated.