Vitaly A. Kashin

Vitaly A. Kashin (1946–2010) was involved in archaeology from the age of nineteen. He participated as an employee of the Institute of Language, Literature, and History (Yakutsk) in excavations of all important Palaeolithic sites in the Aldan River basin from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, gaining first-hand knowledge of its prehistory and stratigraphy including controversial issues. In 1991, he defended his Cand. Sci. (PhD equivalent) dissertation that forms the basis of this book. Kashin then moved to the Institute of Humanitarian Studies, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and continued archaeological work in the Kolyma River basin until the late 2000s.