Preaurignacian — «Running ahead of time» or the beginning? A clear and precise definition of the term « running ahead of time» in the work of L. B. Vishneatsky (1993: 7-16) allows to look at the similar phenomenon not as at «the archaeological curious incident», but as at one of the kinds of the cultural changeableness in prehistory. But it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that some of the stone industries, analysed by L. B. Vishneatsky, can turn out to be not an utterly disappeared phenomenon (Preaurignacian, Howieson’s Poort) but, notwithstanding its old age, a genuine beginning, source of a new archaeological epoch: Upper Palaeolithic period. Such a probability becomes possible if we take into consideration a number of indirect but at the same time interrelated circumstances. Their thorough analysis supports the hypothesis that in ancient European industries of the Aurignacian technocomplex there existed a kind of common source, formed much earlier outside Europe, most probable, in the result of the activity of people of a modern physical type. At present, at least, the Near-Eastern Preaurignac remains the only candidate for the role of such a source.