General background: modern human behavior in the Paleolithic world -- Some key issues in the emergence and diversity of 'modern' human behavior / Paul Mellars -- Early modern human dispersal in central and eastern Europe / Jiří Svoboda -- Human migrations and adaptations in Asia inferred from genome diversity / Ryosuke Kimura -- Migration and the origins of Homo sapiens / Peter Bellwood -- South Asia -- Modern human emergence in South Asia: a review of the fossil and genetic evidence / Sheela Athreya -- Antiquity of modern humans and behavioral modernity in the Indian subcontinent: implications of the Jwalapuram evidence / Ravi Korisettar -- Genes, stone tools, and modern humans, dispersal in the center of the Old World / Parth R. Chauhan, Shantanu Ozarkar, and Shaunak Kulkarni -- Southeast Asia -- Hoabinhians: a key population with which to debate the peopling of Southeast Asia / Hirofumi Matsumura, Marc F. Oxenham, and Nguyen Lan Cuong -- First archaeological evidence of symbolic activities from the Pleistocene of Vietnam / Nguyen Viet -- Reconstructing late Pleistocene climates, landscapes, and human activities in northern Borneo from excavations in the Niah Caves / Tim Reynolds and Graeme Barker -- Tracking evidence for modern human behavior in Paleolithic Indonesia / Truman Simanjuntak, François Sémah, and Anne-Marie Sémah -- Human emergence and adaptation to an island environment in the Philippine Paleolithic / Armand S. Mijares -- Detecting traits of modern behavior through microwear analysis: a case study from the Philippine terminal Pleistocene / Alfred F. Pawlik -- Wallacea and Australia -- Maritime migration and lithic assemblage on Talaud islands in northern Wallacea during the late Pleistocene / Rintaro Ono, Naoki Nakajima, Hiroe Nishizawa, Shizuo Oda, and Santoso Soegondho -- Crossing the Wallace line: the maritime skills of the earliest colonists in the Wallacean archipelago / Sue O'Connor -- Cultural diversification and the global dispersion of Homo sapiens: lessons from Australia / Peter Hiscock -- East Asia mainland and Taiwan -- Chang-pin culture of Paleolithic Taiwan and its related problems / Chao-mei Lien -- New evidence of modern human behavior in Paleolithic central China / Youping Wang -- Handaxes in the Imjin River basin, Korea: implications for late Pleistocene hominin evolution in East Asia / Seonbok Yi -- The characteristics of upper Paleolithic industries in Korea: innovation, continuity, and interaction / Gikil Lee -- East Asia Japanese archipelago -- The appearance and characteristics of the early upper Paleolithic in the Japanese archipelago / Masami Izuho -- Paleovegetation during MIS 3 in the east Asia / Hikaru Takahara and Ryoma Hayashi -- Further study on the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in the Japanese archipelago / Akira Iwase, Keiichi Takahashi, and Masami Izuho -- Pleistocene seafaring and colonization of the Ryuku Islands, southwestern Japan / Yousuke Kaifu, Masaki Fujita, Minoru Yoneda, and Shinji Yamasaki -- Maritime transport of obsidian in Japan during the upper Paleolithic / Nobuyuki Ikeya -- Appearance of Hakuhen-Sentoki (HS points) and second modern human migration into Kyushu, Japan / Kazuki Morisaki -- Trap-pit hunting in late Pleistocene Japan / Hiroyuki Sato -- Further analyses of Hokkaido Jōmon mitochondrial DNA / Noboru Adachi, Ken-ichi Shinoda, and Masami Izuho -- On the processes of diversification in microblade technocomplexes in the late glacial Hokkaido / Yuichi Nakazawa and Satoru Yamada -- Siberia -- The overland dispersal of modern humans to eastern Asia / Ted Goebel -- The Paleolithic peopling of Mongolia: an updated assessment / Jacques Jaubert -- Middle and upper Paleolithic interactions and the emergence of 'modern behavior' in southern Siberia and Mongolia / Evgeny P. Rybin -- The emergence of modern behavior in the Transbaikal, Russia: timing and technology / Ian Buvit -- Modern human response to the last glacial maximum in Siberia / Kelly E. Graf -- Summary and conclusions -- Modern human dispersal and behavior in Paleolithic Asia: summary and discussion / Yousuke Kaifu, Masami Izuho, and Ted Goebel