Comment on “Late Mousterian Persistence near the Arctic Circle”

northern site of Byzovaya (Russia) and concluded that it was Mousterian and produced by Neandertals. The previous interpretation of this assemblage as falling within Early Upper Paleolithic variability remains the most parsimonious explanation; pending additional fossil discoveries, there is no evidence supporting the occurrence of Neandertals at these high latitudes. The recent paper by Slimak et al. (1) makestwo large claims. First, based on their re-analysis of the small (n = 313 on 550 m2), previously excavated (2) lithic assemblage from Byzovaya (Russia) (Fig. 1), they claim that the assemblage is now best attributed to the Mous-terian. Second, they use this Mousterian attribu-tion to claim that the Byzovaya assemblage was produced by Neandertals. This inferred Neander-tal presence near the Arctic Circle is the north-ernmost one claimed thus far and is at least 7000 14C years younger than any other unambiguou