This volume contains five chapters that present highly original research on Siberia's unique history by five Russian scholars. The volume is edited by Prof. Elena A. Okladnikova, a faculty member of the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. The articles include discussions of seafaring along the Siberian coast, ethnolinguistic considerations, the worldview of inner Asian nomads, and ethnocultural understandings of civilization crossroads.

Elena A. Okladnikova is an archaeologist with specialties in cultural history, sociology of spiritual life, rock art, social technologies, social anthropology, and ethnosociology. She has led archaeological expeditions in Siberia and Altai and is the author of over 400 scientific, educational, and methodological works. She is presently Professor in the Departmentof Sociology at the Institute of History and Social Sciences of the Herzen State Pedagogical University, in St. Petersburg, Russia.