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Working at digs in Primorye, archeologists from Russia, Japan and America have found evidence that could change the theories of prehistoric human society.

Chipping patiently, the man worked on his spearpoint. He flaked the stone, sharpening it into a weapon that would pierce the hide of a bear or a tiger.

He spent hours making the spear — and then the stone cracked.

He tried to make a knife out of the biggest piece, but again he cut it the wrong way, and the blade broke. Disappointed, he threw it on the ground and walked away.

Twelve thousand years later, Dr. Alla Garkovik and other archeologists found the pieces and put together the scenario of the frustrated workman. “When you work for years, you can feel them with your guts,” Garkovik said.

Working at digs near Ustinovka, about 400 kilometers northeast of Vladivostok, archeologists from Russia, Japan, and America have made discoveries that could change existing theories about the development of early human societies. They are finding new evidence of links among prehistoric peoples from Japan, Siberia and the Far East, and America.

Ustinovka is one of the few places in the world that provides so complete a record of the transition to modern times — when people switched from hunting the giant herd animals, such as mammoths, to stalking smaller individual prey, like deer and bear.

The site attracts American archeologists because of its antiquity. The archaeology of the New World only goes back approximately 12,000 years. The prehistory of Primorye is more than twice that old, Jim Cassidy, a postgraduate student from the University of Santa Barbara, wrote recently.

“It is surprising to many American archaeologists that the cultures of the Russian Far East were already entering into the Neolithic period before the first Americans entered the New World,” he wrote in an e-mail exchange with the Vladivostok News.

Japanese scientists are particularly interested in similarities of artifacts in Hokkaido and Primorye. Their research proves that Japanese prehistoric culture might have been connected with Siberia and the Far East 30,000 years ago, Professor Hiroshi Kajiwara, an archeologist from Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai, Japan, wrote in an e-mail message.

Some of the findings have been significant. Dr. Nina Kononenko and Garkovik, archeologists with the Far Eastern Institute of History, Ethnography and Archaeology, said last year at Ustinovka-3 they unearthed pottery dated from 9,000-10,000 years ago.

Previously, archeologists had believed there was no pottery in Primorye at that time. Dr. Michael Glassow, a professor at the University of Santa Barbara, says similar American pottery is thousands of years younger. The Russians were also interested to uncover signs of a human shelter, including a row of holes for tent poles.

The first Primorians were hunter nomads, following herds. But as the climate warmed around 10,000 years ago, they began fishing in the summers and collecting plants for food in the woods. It was thousands of years before they settled in permanent villages across the country.

Ustinovka-3 is a dig at a prehistoric tempo rary camp. It is approximately four meters by four meters, not far from the Zerkalnaya River, next to a deposit of tuff, or fragments of volcanic rock used by primatives people for making stone tools. It was effectively an ancient tool bench. Primative people would chop off a large piece of stone, which the archeologists call the “nucleus”, cut it to smaller pieces, and then chipped those down into stone knives, arrowheads and spear points. The chips were left around — for scientists to discover thousands of years later. If a bigger tool was broken, they would transform it into a smaller one. Unfortunately, the soil in Primorye is acid and none of the organic material (bones or wood) was preserved. But archeologists can learn a great deal, even from a chip of stone.

It’s rare to find a complete tool at the site where they were made. The primitive craftsman would “hide or lose the good tools,” said Garkovik. “Those were seldom preserved. What we study is basically waste.”

In one site there was a small concentration of half-finished products, as if someone put them in a sack, but the sack was not preserved. There are both complete and broken tools.

At the dig, each party contributed its skills and knowledge to the project. The Japanese applied their optical-luminescent method of dating the sites near Ustinovka, where the ancient people lived from 20,000 to 8,000 years ago. Cassidy offered his methods of analyzing the sites.

It turned out that everybody had a different approach to excavation, and 15 students who went to the site last summer got a lot of new ideas. They made experiments and had to report and discuss at daily seminars.

“This is the only expedition which is not purely scientific,” said Kononenko, “It grew into a workshop, a scientific school.”

The students and postgraduates already wrote dozens of papers, Cassidy plans to come to Ustinovka next summer to work on his dissertation. Natsuyo Saltanashi, a Japanese student from Hokkaido, decided to stay in Vladivostok and work at Kononenko’s laboratory, processing the finds in Ustinovka.

“The site in Hokkaido is later than in Primorye,” she said. “But I think there are a lot of similarities between the findings in both sites — obsidian [tools], for instance.”

Vladivostok colleagues call the girl a Russian name, Nastya, and help her overcome the language barrier. Saltanashi pays for her stay in Vladivostok herself, shrugging off hardships unheard of in her homeland - like blackouts.

“I could not believe that such things could happen,” she said. “But now I am used to it.”

Both Japanese and American archeologists said they wished they could speak better Russian. They are used to the rigors of the field life, but some participants were nervous about crossing many wooden bridges that had been damaged during typhoons of 1995 while on the way to Olga Bay.

But the Russians were bitter about the budget. “Our Institute did not contribute a single ruble,” said Kononenko. Director Victor Larin said the Institute paid for the expeditions for 20 various projects, including Kononenko’s, until two years ago, when finances were reduced only to salaries to the staff. With the coming restructuring of Russia’s Academy of sciences, which will be done by central government, he isn’t even sure the Institute will exist next year.

The foreigners ended up paying for the expedi tion and sponsoring all the Russians going with them, then they leave their tents and sleeping bags for Russians. Only Glassow received a grant. Cassidy came twice at his own expense.

Mary Speer, public relations officer with the American Consulate in Vladivostok said the consulate traditionally doesn’t fund science. But in a year, depending on funding from the Congress, she hopes the consulate will help fund the project.

The team may get more international help. Last summer a team from South Korea visited the sites to film a documentary about migration and cultural contacts 20,000-10,000 years ago. Next summer, South Korean archaeologists will participate in the expedition.

Even after six years of work, the expectations from Ustinovka are high. Kajiwara wrote, “It would be my very pleasure, if I, with my Russian friends, could unearth the oldest lithics near Ustinovka or in the Maritime Region [Primorye]. Then the hypothesis of the dispersion of homo erectus or archaic homo sapiens will have to be changed.”