Dr. Evgeny Rybin presented results of his Doctor Habilitatus work

As you may know, Russia follows the two-level configuration of post-Master’s higher academic degrees: Candidate of Science (generally regarded as equivalent to the Ph.D. degree offered in most countries) and Doctor of Science, the latter of which is meant to reflect the comprehensive results of long-term investigation.

Academician A. P. Derevianko, Rybin’s dissertation supervisor

Evgeny Rybin made a preliminary presentation of his doctoral dissertation “Regional variability of Initial Upper Paleolithic industries in southern Siberia and eastern Central Asia.” The Institute’s Stone Age Department accepted his work and recommended Rybin be allowed to move forward to the final defense, to be held in December 2020.

Drs. Anton Anoikin and Arina Khatsenovich at the departmental meeting
Junior researcher Daria Marchenko at the departmental meeting

In his dissertation, Dr. Rybin presents results of several completed and ongoing research projects, including those supported by grants from the Russian Science Foundation (19-18-00198 and 19-78-10112).

Updates on Mongolian 2020 field season

A special commission of the Mongolian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport took the decision to cancel foreign expeditions in 2020 to help protect Mongolia from the Covid-19 pandemic. Naturally, we support this decision completely and have tentatively shifted our planned excavation of Tsagaan Agui Cave to spring, 2021.

This doesn’t mean that all our work has been put on hiatus. We are working on Mongolian samples delivered to Russia. The Mongolian members of our team will continue to work on sampling to develop an isotopic map of Mongolia. Just yesterday, the final portion of samples collected for OSL-dating was delivered to the IVPP in Beijing where our colleague, Dr. Ge Junyi has been working hard determining the age of Paleolithic sites in the Orkhon Valley. Laboratory analyses of other samples is on-going in Novosibirsk.

Soon we will publish new updates, some of which promise to be very exciting!

#PaleoMongolia #archaeology #JMRAAE #fieldseason2020