The area of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) follows the foothills and piedmont zones around the northern limits of Asia's interior mountains, connecting two important areas for human ...evolution: the Fergana valley and the Siberian Altai. Prior research has suggested the IAMC may have provided an area of connected refugia from harsh climates during the Pleistocene. To date, this region contains very few secure, dateable Pleistocene sites, but its widely available carbonate units present an opportunity for discovering cave sites, which generally preserve longer sequences and organic remains. Here we present two models for predicting karstic cave and rockshelter features in the Kazakh portion of the IAMC. The 2018 model used a combination of lithological data and unsupervised landform classification, while the 2019 model used feature locations from the results of our 2017-2018 field surveys in a supervised classification using a minimum-distance classifier and morphometric features derived from the ASTER digital elevation model (DEM). We present the results of two seasons of survey using two iterations of the karstic cave models (2018 and 2019), and evaluate their performance during survey. In total, we identified 105 cave and rockshelter features from 2017-2019. We conclude that this model-led approach significantly reduces the target area for foot survey.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite occupying a central geographic position, investigations of hominin populations in the Arabian Peninsula during the Lower Palaeolithic period are rare. The colonization of Eurasia below 55 ...degrees latitude indicates the success of the genus Homo in the Early and Middle Pleistocene, but the extent to which these hominins were capable of innovative and novel behavioural adaptations to engage with mid-latitude environments is unclear. Here we describe new field investigations at the Saffaqah locality (206-76) near Dawadmi, in central Arabia that aim to establish how hominins adapted to this region. The site is located in the interior of Arabia over 500 km from both the Red Sea and the Gulf, and at the headwaters of two major extinct river systems that were likely used by Acheulean hominins to cross the Peninsula. Saffaqah is one of the largest Acheulean sites in Arabia with nearly a million artefacts estimated to occur on the surface, and it is also the first to yield stratified deposits containing abundant artefacts. It is situated in the unusual setting of a dense and well-preserved landscape of Acheulean localities, with sites and isolated artefacts occurring regularly for tens of kilometres in every direction. We describe both previous and recent excavations at Saffaqah and its large lithic assemblage. We analyse thousands of artefacts from excavated and surface contexts, including giant andesite cores and flakes, smaller cores and retouched artefacts, as well as handaxes and cleavers. Technological assessment of stratified lithics and those from systematic survey, enable the reconstruction of stone tool life histories. The Acheulean hominins at Dawadmi were strong and skilful, with their adaptation evidently successful for some time. However, these biface-makers were also technologically conservative, and used least-effort strategies of resource procurement and tool transport. Ultimately, central Arabia was depopulated, likely in the face of environmental deterioration in the form of increasing aridity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Paleoanthropological data suggest that the Late Pleistocene was a time of population contact and possibly dispersal in Central Asia. Geographic and paleoclimatic data suggest that a natural corridor ...through Kazakhstan linked areas to the north and east (Siberia, China) to those further to the west and south (Uzbekistan), much like a Paleolithic Silk Road. We review the known Pleistocene archaeology and paleoclimatic setting of this region and provide a geoarchaeological framework for contextualizing preliminary survey results of the PALAEOSILKROAD project's first three seasons of fieldwork. We discuss some systematic biases in three geomorphic and sedimentary archives: karst, loess, and spring deposits, specifying ways in which these biases might determine the kinds of data that are extractable by systematic survey. In particular, we caution about the possibility of future systematic biases in chronology that could come about as a result of the type of geomorphic context in which the sites are recovered. We conclude with recommendations for future work in the area.
Central Asian caves with Palaeolithic deposits are few, but they provide a rich record of human fossils and cultural assemblages that has been used to model Late Pleistocene hominin dispersals. ...However, previous research has not yet systematically evaluated the formation processes that influence the frequency of Palaeolithic cave sites in the region. To address this deficiency, we combined field survey and micromorphological analyses in the piedmont zone of south Kazakhstan. Here, we present our preliminary results focusing on selected sites of the Qaratau mountains. Sediment cover varies among the surveyed caves, and loess‐like sediments dominate the cave sequences. The preservation of cave deposits is influenced by reworking of cave sediments within the caves but also by the broader erosional processes that shape semiarid landscapes. Ultimately, deposits of potentially Pleistocene age are scarce. Our study provides new data in the geoarchaeologically neglected region of Central Asia and demonstrates that micromorphology has great analytical potential even within the limitations of rigorous survey projects. We outline some of the processes that influence the formation and preservation of cave deposits in Kazakhstan, as well as broader implications for the distribution of Palaeolithic cave sites in Central Asia and other semiarid environments.
The Acheulean is the longest lasting cultural-technological tradition in human evolutionary history. However, considerable gaps remain in understanding the chronology and geographical distribution of ...Acheulean hominins. We present the first chronometrically dated Acheulean site from the Arabian Peninsula, a vast and poorly known region that forms more than half of Southwest Asia. Results show that Acheulean hominin occupation expanded along hydrological networks into the heart of Arabia from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 7 until at least ~190 ka ̶ the youngest documented Acheulean in Southwest Asia. The site of Saffaqah features Acheulean technology, characterized by large flakes, handaxes and cleavers, similar to Acheulean assemblages in Africa. These findings reveal a climatically-mediated later Acheulean expansion into a poorly known region, amplifying the documented diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominin behaviour across the Old World and elaborating the terminal archaic landscape encountered by our species as they dispersed out of Africa.
The study of raw materials was comprehensively studied in European and African Palaeolithic. However, systematic research of raw material sourcing has not been undertaken for the Palaeolithic of ...Kazakhstan, such surveys being embedded in reconnaissance works aimed at discovering new Palaeolithic sites. Our work presents preliminary results of the first lithic raw material survey in Kazakhstan. This study distinguishes the geographic patterns of land-use and their correlation with the stone tools from stratified sites. We describe primary and secondary sources of raw materials and compare macroscopically with the lithic assemblages. The survey results show a heterogeneous distribution of raw materials throughout the study regions. Macroscopic observations of lithic assemblages, and data extracted from literature suggest that hominins primarily selected local raw materials. Regional differences in the utilisation of a particular type of raw material which can be observed through the macroscopic examination of the lithic collections are confirmed by survey results.
The nature of human dispersals out of Africa has remained elusive because of the poor resolution of paleoecological data in direct association with remains of the earliest non-African people. Here, ...we report hominin and non-hominin mammalian tracks from an ancient lake deposit in the Arabian Peninsula, dated within the last interglacial. The findings, it is argued, likely represent the oldest securely dated evidence for
in Arabia. The paleoecological evidence indicates a well-watered semi-arid grassland setting during human movements into the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia. We conclude that visitation to the lake was transient, likely serving as a place to drink and to forage, and that late Pleistocene human and mammalian migrations and landscape use patterns in Arabia were inexorably linked.
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