Toward a New Outline of the Soviet Central Asian Paleolithic [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA is a vast, extremely continental territory, some 2,400,000 km2 in all, consisting of the arid Turan depression and a portion of the Central Asiatic highlands including the Pamir-Alai and Tien Shan ranges. It includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, Kirgiziya, and southern Kazahstan; the northern portions of Afghanistan also fall naturally into this area. The eastern, mountainous part has been studied much more thoroughly than the western deserts. We wish to present here a brief summary of the major results of the last 25 years of Paleolithic research in Soviet Central Asia, with special attention to the most important problems archaeologists are facing there. This is by no means a comprehensive review of the literature or a lengthy analysis of data.2 Rather, it is an attempt to communicate some of the most significant features of the Soviet Central Asian Paleolithic, something which has not been done since Movius's 1 This paper is the result of extended collaboration between the authors from May through November 1977 in Tadzhikistan. Davis's visit to the Soviet Union was part of a program of exchanges between the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., and the Academv of Sciences, U.S.S.R. We wish to thank both institutions for making our cooperative work possible. 2 We are preparing a joint monograph which will include a considerable amount of new data, a critical review of the literature, and many illustrations.

Radiocarbon Dating of Interdune Paleo‐Wetland Deposits to Constrain the Age of Mid‐to‐Late Holocene Microlithic Artifacts from the Zhongba site, Southwestern Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau

“…Osh Khona, located at >4000 m asl in the Markansu basin of the Pamir Mountains, is another high altitude microlithic site of note (Figure ). The calibrated 14 C dates for the site span 10.8–7.8 ka, putting the age similar to the oldest microlithic sites in Qinghai, and older than Zhongba (Ranov et al., ). Although the site contains microliths, the majority of artifacts are instead pebble tools and choppers, which is in stark contrast to the assemblages noted from Tibet, including Zhongba.…”

“…Site age ranges are derived from published 14 C ages interpreted for each site. Reference for each site as follows: O sh K hona – Ranov et al., ; Dindun, Qugong, Karou—Aldenderfer & Zhang, ; Lunana Charcoal – Meyer et al., ; Central Chang Tang sites—Brantingham, Olsen, & Schaller, ; An, ; Xidatan—Brantingham & Gao, ; Heimahe, Jiangxigou—Madsen et al., ; Rhode et al., ; Zhongba—this study.…”

Palaeolithic Archaeology in the Mongolian People's Republic; A Report on the state of the art.

“…2). However, one might expect to find pebble-tool sites here, since the conditions in the 'lake hollow' area would have been similar in many ways to those at Lakhuti 1 and Karatau in Tadzikstan (Ranov 1968;Ranov and Davis 1979), where chopper-tool makers were established by 250,000 BP and contemporary hand-axe makers were to be found in nearby Kazakstan. He related them to other claimed pebble tool sites such as Filimoshki and Ust-Tu in Siberia, but these contain 'artefacts' which are in fact natural and there is a division of opinion between those who consider the Siberian pebble-tool industries as genuinely old (e.g.…”

The scale of soil investigations in archaeology

“…In contrast, the time scale of human occupation in the Old World is roughly the same as that of the vast loess deposits of Europe, central Asia, and China. These loesses contain buried soils similar in scale (extent, thickness, and age) to those of North America, but they are used for correlation and interpretation of both geologic and archaeologic situations (Ranov and Davis, 1979;Dodonov, 1987;Hoffecker, 1987;An et al, 1987).…”