The terminal Pleistocene –ea rly Holocene cultural continuity in the north-central Caucasus: Evidence from Psytuaje rockshelter in the region context

•Psytuaje rockshelter is the first stratified late Epipaleolithic (EPP) site that was intensively investigated in the northern slope of the Central Caucasus.•The multidisciplinary research in Psytuaje rockshelter provides new important data about subsistence strategies and culture of the EPP hunter-gatherer groups.•Our study reveals cultural and technological similarities between late EPP assemblages in the north-central and in the north-western Caucasus, including those from Mezmaiskaya cave.•The new data indicates that the late EPP culture developed continuously across the Pleistocene–Holocene transition and up to the early Holocene.