In the course of the 1980s, Palaeolithic research was resumed in Austria and has been intensified since 1999 by the Prehistoric Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This research has focused on the archaeological-rich loess region of Lower Austria, centred around Krems on the Danube. In 2005, the first of these projects, which concentrated on the long-known site of Hundssteig in Krems, was completed. On this occasion, the Academy invited specialists from twelve European countries to an international symposium in Vienna with the topic - New Aspects of the Central and Eastern European Upper Palaeolithic methods, chronology, technology and subsistence/ Aktuelle Aspekte des mittel- und osteuropäischen Jungpaläolithikums - Methoden, Chronologie, Technologie und Subsistenz to discuss the present state of research and new regional finds. Much emphasis was placed on interdisciplinary studies which are of such vital importance to Palaeolithic research. Of special importance were sedimentology, Ice Age stratigraphy and absolute chronology which could be discussed and compared over large geographical regions of Europe. The discussion concentrated on the early phases of the Upper Palaeolithic and the transition from the Aurignacian to the Gravettian. These periods were exemplified by the presentation of new research from the Lower Austrian sites of Krems-Hundssteig, Krems-Wachtberg, Willendorf, Grub-Kranawetberg and Alberndorf and neighbouring regions, as well as well-known sites ranging along the Danube from the Swabian Alb in Germany to Rumania and north to Russia.