Nazugum, a new 4000 year old rockshelter site in the Ili Alatau, Tien Shan
Namen A. Varis A. Lindauer S. Friedrich R. Taimagambetov Z. Iovita R.
June 2022Elsevier Ltd
Archaeological Research in Asia
2022#30
The PALAEOSILKROAD project has been conducting field surveys in Kazakhstan to explore the regional Palaeolithic record by targeting primarily caves and rockshelters. However, the survey also discovered numerous sites that were occupied during the Holocene. In this paper, we present our preliminary findings from the Nazugum rockshelter, a new archaeological site located in south-eastern Kazakhstan (Almaty region). The stratigraphic sequence demonstrates the transition from fluvial channel deposits without artifacts to aeolian loess deposits with lithics, charcoal remnants, and fragments of animal bones. The lithics recovered from the sediment wall are dominated by bladelet technology, characteristic for Holocene assemblages. Radiocarbon date from adjacent charcoal samples yielded a calibrated age (2-sigma) of 2470–2288 cal BC attributing the human occupation to the transitional period of late Eneolithic and early Bronze Age. Our study provides new data for the use of rockshelters in Kazakhstan during the late Holocene and lays the groundwork for future salvage work in Nazugum rockshelter due to the active erosion of the archaeological record.
C14 , Central Asia , Eneolithic , Lithics , Loess , Nazugum
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Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, 72070, Germany
Department of Archaeology, Ethnology and Museology, Faculty of History, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
Institute of Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, 72070, Germany
Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie gGmbH, Mannheim, 68159, Germany
National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, 10003, United States
Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology
Department of Archaeology
Institute of Archaeological Sciences
Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie gGmbH
National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Center for the Study of Human Origins
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