Abstract: The extensive and rapid faunal alteration occurring at the late Pleistocene-Holocene is an informative period for studying faunal responses to rapid environmental change. Since the Miocene Central Asia has been the focal point of the transformation in Eurasia towards more open and dry environment. Here I use published literature data on the late Palaeolithic of Lake Baikal and Altai Mountains region in Russia to map environmental changes through molar crown height (hypsodonty), diet and body size in large herbivores. The results demonstrate a decrease in mean hypsodonty, mean body size, and the shift in dietary preferences from grazing towards browsing during the latest late Palaeolithic or Late Glacial (LG), which implies climatic warming, precipitation increase and, probably, spread of forests. Common species, present in ≥ 25 per cent of localities, produced these trends more strongly and responded faster to changing environments. Hypsodonty increased with altitude, which suggests precipitation decrease. Deviation between precipitation values derived from hypsodonty and estimated from other paleoindicators might be increasing with altitude. The major change that influenced the demise of the mammoth fauna in southern Siberia was probably initiated after the Last Glaciation Maximum (LGM). Decrease in mammoth and perissodactyl commonness is consistent with large mammal extinctions and different from artiodactyls response to climatic change. Human overexploitation could regionally add more stress to the declining mammalian populations and lead quicker to their extinction.