Many thousands of years swept over the steppes of Kazakhstan before new phase of human evolution.
Slowly but implacably glaciers conquered the territory. Century by century the climate changed. It became more severe. Thermophilic plants began disappearing. Animals from previous interglacial period step by step died away together with them.
In the Late Palaeolith, which dates back to the period from 40 to 12 thousand years B.C., mammoth and woolly rhinoceros dominated. Different animals, including bison, deer, dziggetai, tarpan (the Eurasian wild horse), fox, saiga (one of the types of antelope), lived close to them.
Scientists suggest that modern man (Homo sapiens) appeared in this period. He was tied with their own kind not only by a primitive herding behavior: at that time groups of people are more or less strong, matriarchal tribe clan. Human society already created its own rules and worked out certain norms of mutual relations. Primitive community began intensive construction of dwellings. It is because of moistening of the climate and sensible fall of temperature.
Archaeological excavation tells about the construction of the first primitive settlements. Very often mammoth bones and wooden poles were used as a skeleton of such dwellings while animal skins served as covering. Habitations during the period of the Late Palaeolith were squat and had oval form. Its foundation was dug in the ground. Some dwellings distinguished by their rather impressive sizes.
At the same time, the further development of tools and methods of their production took place. The experience of previous generations was not lost...
There were various tools at that period. Scientists discovered more than a dozen of all kind of tools, such as scraper and plates with trimmed edges, points of spears and darts, awls and plates with hollows, as well as side and middle cutters, roundish scrapers. By the way, cutters and scrapers were the main working tools.
Sometimes working edges of such tools (stone point of spear may be considered among them) were pointed and processed using pressure flaking. This was a very difficult process: ancient craftsman chopped off or planed away edges of stone by elastic bone stick or silicic flaker. It is obvious that the process had some features in different regions. For example, in Kazakhstan such tools are rarities.
Monuments of the Late Palaeolith were discovered in Western, Southern and Central parts of Kazakhstan. In Irtysh district the most famous opened sites are situated near Kanai and Novonikolskoe, Svinchatka and Bukhtarminskaya cave villages. In the Central Kazakhstan were found such sites as Karabas III, Batpak VII, Angrensor II. In the Southern Kazakhstan — Ushbas cave, sites Uzynbulak II, Sorkul, Ushbulak IV-V.
