Central Asia is positioned at a crossroads linking several zones important to hominin dispersal during the Middle Pleistocene. However, the scarcity of stratified and dated archaeological material ...and paleoclimate records makes it difficult to understand dispersal and occupation dynamics during this time period, especially in arid zones. Here we compile and analyze paleoclimatic and archaeological data from Pleistocene Central Asia, including examination of a new layer-counted speleothem-based multiproxy record of hydrological changes in southern Uzbekistan at the end of MIS 11. Our findings indicate that Lower Palaeolithic sites in the steppe, semi-arid, and desert zones of Central Asia may have served as key areas for the dispersal of hominins into Eurasia during the Middle Pleistocene. In agreement with previous studies, we find that bifaces occur across these zones at higher latitudes and in lower altitudes relative to the other Paleolithic assemblages. We argue that arid Central Asia would have been intermittently habitable during the Middle Pleistocene when long warm interglacial phases coincided with periods when the Caspian Sea was experiencing consistently high water levels, resulting in greater moisture availability and more temperate conditions in otherwise arid regions. During periodic intervals in the Middle Pleistocene, the local environment of arid Central Asia was likely a favorable habitat for paleolithic hominins and was frequented by Lower Paleolithic toolmakers producing bifaces.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) is one of the most important phases in the recent period of the evolution of humans. During a narrow period in the first half of Marine Isotope Stage 3 laminar ...industries, accompanied by developed symbolism and specific blade technology, emerged over a vast area, replacing different variants of the Middle Paleolithic. In western Eurasia the earliest appearance of IUP technology is seen at the Boker Tachtit site, dated ca. 50 ka cal BP. The earliest evidence of IUP industries in the Balkans and Central Europe, linked to the spread of Homo sapiens, has been dated to around 48 ka cal BP. A key area of IUP dispersals are the mountains and piedmont of southern Siberia and eastern Central Asia. One of the reference assemblages here is Kara-Bom, an open-air site in the Siberian Altai. Three major settlement phases are distinguished in the sediment sequence. In this paper, we present the results of new radiocarbon determinations and Bayesian models. We find that the latest phase of the IUP, Upper Paleolithic 1(‘UP1’) is bracketed between 43 and 35 ka cal BP (at 95.4% probability). The earliest IUP phase, ‘UP2’, begins to accumulate from ca. 49 ka cal BP and ends by ca. 45 ka cal BP. The Middle Paleolithic ‘MP2’ assemblages all fall prior to 50 ka cal BP. We can detect a spatial distribution of dates from the geographic core of the IUP beyond the Altai where it appears around 47–45 ka cal BP. The current distribution of dates suggests a west-east dispersal of the IUP technocomplex along the mountain belts of Central Asia and South Siberia.
The fossil record suggests that at least two major human dispersals occurred across the Eurasian steppe during the Late Pleistocene. Neanderthals and Modern Humans moved eastward into Central Asia, a ...region intermittently occupied by the enigmatic Denisovans. Genetic data indicates that the Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals near the Altai Mountains (South Siberia) but where and when they met H. sapiens is yet to be determined. Here we present archaeological evidence that document the timing and environmental context of a third long-distance population movement in Central Asia, during a temperate climatic event around 45,000 years ago. The early occurrence of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic, a techno-complex whose sudden appearance coincides with the first occurrence of H. sapiens in the Eurasian steppes, establishes an essential archaeological link between the Siberian Altai and Northwestern China . Such connection between regions provides empirical ground to discuss contacts between local and exogenous populations in Central and Northeast Asia during the Late Pleistocene.
Figurative depictions in art first occur ca. 50,000 years ago in Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Considered by most as an advanced form of symbolic behavior, they are restricted to our species. ...Here, we report a piece of ornament interpreted as a phallus-like representation. It was found in a 42,000 ca.-year-old Upper Paleolithic archaeological layer at the open-air archaeological site of Tolbor-21, in Mongolia. Mineralogical, microscopic, and rugosimetric analyses points toward the allochthonous origin of the pendant and a complex functional history. Three-dimensional phallic pendants are unknown in the Paleolithic record, and this discovery predates the earliest known sexed anthropomorphic representation. It attests that hunter-gatherer communities used sex anatomical attributes as symbols at a very early stage of their dispersal in the region. The pendant was produced during a period that overlaps with age estimates for early introgression events between Homo sapiens and Denisovans, and in a region where such encounters are plausible.
This paper explores the modes of dispersal, variability, and chronology of the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) of Southern Siberia and the northern Central Asia. Several types of tool-markers, a ...peculiar type of reduction technology and two types of adornments, specific to the area under study, are distinguished. Based on current data, the author concludes that about 45,000 years ago, there was a rapid eastern movement of populations from a core region in part of the mountains of the Russian Altai towards central Mongolia and southwestern Transbaikal. In these regions, about 43,000–40,000 years ago, a second center of a blade-based IUP appeared. It was characterized by specific forms of tools, reduction technologies and personal adornments similar to those in the core region. Thus, the transfer of a whole set of a unified cultural tradition occurred. Therefore, based on the geographic and temporal distribution of tool-markers, ancient populations moved along the most southern of the possible routes, i.e. over the territory of present-day Mongolia and northwest China.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is recognized as a cold and dry period that marks the maximum southward extension of the Scandinavian Inlands in Europe. In Asia, the ice ...sheet did not expand from the Arctic into Siberia, yet the LGM had a significant impact at high latitudes and elevations, as well as in regions with a continental climate. How much these changes affected the human occupation of Siberia and Mongolia is still a matter of debate and various models dealing with continuity, discontinuity, demographic movement and adaptation have been put forth. The present paper is a critical review of available empirical data regarding the impact of the LGM on landscapes and human settlements in Mongolia. This review underscores the caveats in the data collected and further analyses are proposed to test several basic hypotheses. The results obtained suggest that during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 3 and MIS 2, there were hiatuses in the human occupation of Mongolia. These gaps are potentially linked with significant changes in climate. It is recognized that one of the main breaks in the cultural sequence is associated with the LGM, suggesting that Mongolia experienced periods of depopulation associated with this dramatic climatic change.
Situated between the Altai Mountains and the Chinese Loess Plateau, the current territory of Mongolia played a pivotal role in Pleistocene human population dynamics in Northeast Asia with ...archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of cultural links with southern Siberia beginning in the Late Pleistocene. Here, we present preliminary results from the newly discovered site of Kharganyn Gol 5 in northern Mongolia. The results obtained from the Kharganyn Gol 5 site allow new reconstructions of chrono-cultural sequences and human behavior in eastern Central Asia. The site has yielded evidence of human occupation corresponding to several phases of the regional Upper Paleolithic. In addition, we present the first evidence of human occupation of the region prior to Greenland Interstadial 12 (GI12; 40,000–43,000 BP) and discuss the implications of such data. The Kharganyn Gol River basin contains sedimentary rock formations including numerous raw material outcrops, containing various types of chert. Prehistoric people used all these chert varieties for tool production, but the modes of raw material exploitation changed through time. This paper reports the presence, unique in Central and North Asia, of a non-utilitarian object made of muscovite mica in an Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblage in Archaeological Horizon 5 of the Kharganyn Gol 5 site.
Situated on the eastern periphery of Central Asia, Mongolia was a potentially important pathway for the migration of paleopopulations from the west to the east (and/or vice versa). Possible scenarios ...for the dispersal of ancient human populations in Mongolia are much more complicated than we initially supposed, due to the limited number of corridors penetrating natural barriers like the mountains of southern Siberia in the north and the arid mountain systems of the Mongolian and Gobi Altai ranges in the south. Nevertheless, we can detect several episodes during which those barriers were crossed by human migrants in the Upper Pleistocene based upon the geographic distribution of various species of Homo. These migration events can be detected by analyzing variability in lithic knapping technology and stone tool assemblages in Mongolia. The earliest two dispersal events we can identify – the Terminal Middle Paleolithic (TMP) and Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) are associated with an extremely complex and enigmatic question: who were the bearers of those cultural traits and did they successively replace one another, or did they co-exist, overlapping culturally? Both the TMP and IUP are associated with the Levallois reduction technology. Here, we attempt to analyze and interpret the entire spectrum of Levallois methods from chronological and technological perspectives, identified in Terminal Middle Paleolithic and Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Mongolia. We identify four principal Levallois methods. The reduction strategies associated with them share features in common with lithic industries from the Russian Altai district in southern Siberia as well as northwestern and north-central China.
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