1 The Younger Dryas in Arid Northeast Asia Joshua Wright and Lisa Janz 1 Wright, J. and L. Janz 2012 The Younger Dryas in Arid Northeast Asia. In Hunter- Gatherer Behavior: Human Response during the Younger Dryas, edited by M. Eren, pp. 231-247. Left Coast Press, Walnut Grove, CA. Introduction In this chapter, we will concentrate on the arid, Northeast Asian steppe region east of the Altai mountains, between the forested steppe of Siberia to the north and the loess highlands of eastern Asia to the south. The three primary regions that we will consider are; the Khangai mountains in Central Mongolia; the Gobi Desert; and the Ikh Nurruud Basin, or Basin of Great Lakes, in western Mongolia (Figure 10.1). The last provides an extensive record of climate proxies from the lakes. Archaeological data, however, comes primarily from the Gobi Desert region. Why This Region? The larger issue in the archaeology of this region, and the sites discussed here, is adaptation to climatic fluctuation. Paleoclimatic data show that arid, northeast Asia has long been a tough environment, and the adaptation to the Younger Dryas by resident hunter-gatherers raises the question of how exceptional the impact of that colder and dryer period might have been on a population already adapted to subsistence on a marginal landscape. Hunter-Gatherer Behavior: Human Response During The Younger Dryas, edited by Metin I. Eren, 2012. © Left Coast Press. All rights reserved.