Fig. 1. The arid landscape of the Neoeuxine stage in the Black Sea deduced from the lithologies of more than 250 sediment cores (Kuprin, Scherbakov et al., 1974; Scherbakov, Kuprin et al., 1978). The soils of the emerged shelf are dominated by wind-blown loess (wavy pattern) and the alluvial deposits (stippled pattern) of meandering rivers that flowed hundreds of km beyond their present mouths to shelf-edge deltas. The ancient littoral zone (brick pattern) was explored during two surveys of a joint Russia/US expedition in 1993.The line with small circles extending northwest from the survey west of the Crimea indicates a transect of new cores.