Occupation of highland Central Asia: New evidence from Kurteke rockshelter, Eastern Pamir

Abstract

The highlands of Central Asia played a crucial role in cultural development across the later Holocene, serving to foster the diffusion of cultural elements by late prehistoric populations and to support the trans-Eurasian exchange routes of the historic Silk Road. However, the early chronology of human occupation in many areas of Inner Asia – particularly the high Pamir Mountains – remains poorly understood. Intensive archaeological study of this area by Soviet archaeologists first began between 1950 and 1970, at which time scholars theorized that the earliest human occupation in the high valleys dates to the Final Pleistocene. To explore early human history in this key region of cultural transmission, a joint expedition conducted new excavations at the archaeological site of Kurteke, confirming that there was human presence in the area as far back as 14 ka BP, and that it persisted discontinuously until the Bronze Age (ca. 4000BP). We applied a multidisciplinary archaeological and paleoenvironmental approach to investigate early human activity at the site, including lithic analysis, absolute dating, and zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical analyses.

Introduction

Research shows that the mountainous spine of Inner Asia has fostered human habitation for tens of thousands of years, with recent discoveries of Denisovans from the disparate ends of these interconnected ranges (Krause et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2020), Neanderthals (Skov et al., 2022), Neanderthal/Denisovan hybrids (Slon et al., 2018), and Pleistocene examples of anatomically modern humans throughout (Ranov and Bubnova, 1961). The valleys of these mountains clearly fostered insular pockets of forests and megafaunal prey that drew people in throughout the latter half of the Pleistocene and during the Holocene. At the core of these interconnected chains of mountains, the Pamir Mountains, in particular, played a key role in human history, from the earliest human occupation of Eurasia through the formation the Silk Road (Good, 2013; Olivieri et al., 2019; Ranov and Carbonell, 1995; Vilade and Olivieri, 2002). The Pamirs sheltered some of the highest mountain passes of the ancient Silk Road (e.g., Bazar Dara), and some of the earliest mining towns in Eurasia formed in these high-alpine valleys (Bubnova, 2017; Bubnova, 2004, Bubnova, 2008). In recent years, excavations in caves within the Pamir range have produced the earliest evidence for productive economies in Central Asia proper, ornamental bone bead manufacture, and a complex array of lithic forms (Fedorchenko et al., 2020; Nishiaki et al., 2022; Taylor et al., 2021). Archaeological studies have recently shown that the Pamirs fostered a complex mix of agricultural systems in prehistory, serving as a corridor for the transmission of East Asian crops westward, as seen in recent discoveries of some of the oldest millet grains in West Asia (Yatoo et al., 2020) and the presence of early barley cultivation in western Tibet (Tang et al., 2021). Archaeobotanical data further suggest that the region served as a mixing zone for South Asian crops while they adapted to northern climates (Spengler et al., 2021; Tang et al., 2021).

Despite the clear archaeological significance, archaeological coverage of much of this region is exceedingly poor, and extant knowledge is based largely on 20th century Soviet scholarship performed before the development of many modern scientific techniques in archaeology. Based on previous research, some scholars have speculated that the Eastern Pamir could have been first inhabited during the Final Upper Paleolithic (20–12 ka BP) (Ranov and Khudjageldiev, 2005). However, archaeology from this period is largely represented by isolated artifacts without a reliable stratigraphic contexts (Ranov and Khudjageldiev, 2005). Artifacts recovered within stratigraphic sequence from the region can only be confidently dated as far back as the Early Holocene (Filimonova and Zhukov, 2020). Considering the unique preservation of archaeological material at many sites in the region, renewed field study using scientific techniques is essential for the development of an understanding of the chronology of early human activity. Here, we report the results of our ongoing research at the Kurteke rock shelter in the Eastern Pamir (Fig. 1) and explore its implications for an early highland occupation of the Pamirs during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.