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Abstract

Here we present the luminescence chronology for the Middle Paleolithic open-air site of Khotylevo I, area I-6-2, in Western Russia. Even with a sizable number of such sites available on the Russian Plain, to our knowledge, no successful corresponding luminescence dating has been published before. Coupled with extensive sedimentological logs and grain-size analysis, our data is further used to infer the palaeoenvironmental conditions on site as well as the landscape-forming processes of the wider region. As the site is contained within the sediments of the 2nd fluvial terrace, our high-resolution chronostratigraphy is a valuable contribution to the understanding of this widespread phenomenon and Late Pleistocene geo-climatic events on the Russian Plain. For the formation of the 2nd terrace, a full incision/aggradation cycle was detected with a duration from MIS 5c/5b to MIS 3. Our results indicate that late Middle Paleolithic human occupation took place during the more ameliorate Early Weichselian phase of MIS 5a. Furthermore, the dates for Khotylevo I-6-2 prove the onset of the late Middle Paleolithic Keilmessergruppen occurred as early as MIS 5a. The archaeological comparison with other numerically dated Late Middle Paleolithic assemblages across the northern central European Plain suggests a complex picture of population dynamics between MIS 5a and MIS 3.