the other parts of north Asia. There is stronger evidence than usual for settlement continuity here from the Mesolithic until the second half of the first millennium AD, when the not yet entirely clear transition to the Medieval period occurred. Despite the enormous geographic extent of the area, only minor local differences are visible, indicating very mobile, nomadic inhabitants. The earliest culture in Yakutia to make ceramic was the Syalakh culture, which have been dated by radiocarbon dating to the 5th millennium BC. They are known from a type of pottery decorated with net patterns and bands of puncture marks. Their remains include weapons and tools made from flint and bone. A series of settlements, some of which were already in use in the Mesolithic, are known, at which the finds are limited to hearths and pits, while remains of buildings are entirely absent. Thus, the people responsible for the Syalakh culture were nomads who survived from hunting and fishing and inhabited certain spots on a seasonal basis. This culture gradually transitions into the Belkachi culture (named after the Belkachi settlement in Yakutia) without any clear break. Their pottery features cord decorations, stripes, zigzag lines and such like. Their dead were buried on their backs in earthen graves. Otherwise, no major differences from the preceding culture are visible. The Ymyyakhtakh culture (2200–1300 BC) is marked out by a new kind of "waffle ceramic", whose upper side is decorated with textile impressions and takes on a waffle-like appearance as a result. Towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC, bronzeworking reached Yakutia. Ymyyakhtakh settlements already feature bronze artifacts. followed next. In the first millennium BC, an independent culture developed on the Taymyr Peninsula, which shared its basic features with the Ust-Mil culture. The Iron Age began in Yakutia around the 5th century BC, but apart from the adoption of iron weapons and tools it does not mark a major change in the material culture. The cultural development in neolithic and chalcolithic Baikal region, where the circumstances were similar to those in Yakutia until the appearance of the late Bronze Age Slab Grave culture. Here too there were some multi-layer storage places which extended back to the Mesolithic period, with hearths, waste pits and storage pits but no remains of buildings. The pottery was similar to that in Yakutia and shows a more or less parallel course of development. The burials are