But the Mal’ta excavations, which continued through the 1950s and beyond, were among the foundational projects of his career.

What the excavations revealed was remarkable.

The site had been occupied repeatedly during the Upper Paleolithic period — the era of anatomically modern humans who used sophisticated stone tools and produced elaborate symbolic objects.

The material culture found at Mal’ta included carved ivory figurines, predominantly representing women, that are now considered among the most significant examples of Paleolithic art in Asia.

Dozens of female figurines in various sizes and styles, made from mammoth ivory and occasionally from other materials, constitute a corpus that has been compared to the famous Venus figurines of Upper Paleolithic Europe.