Bladelet industries of the Early Upper Palaeolithic in southern Kazakhstan: A detailed analysis of carinated bladelet cores excavated from the newly discovered Buiryokbastau-Bulak-1 site in the Karatau mountains

Abstract

Kazakhstan, which connects the Altai mountains and Caucasus area of Uzbekistan, is an indispensable region in arguments about the diffusion and settlement of Homo sapiens in Asia. Upper Palaeolithic culture in eastern Kazakhstan and the northern Altai developed together. Nevertheless, reliable chronologic data from archaeological sites in these regions, necessary for understanding diffusion of Homo sapiens, are rare. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) culture in southern Kazakhstan through detailed analysis of materials from the Buiryokbastau-Bulak-1 site (N43°06′36.24″, E70°34′03.70″). This is a site that was newly-discovered during survey in the Karatau mountains, at which two clear cultural layers were identified during excavations in 2018 and 2019. Although these two cultural layers consist of alluvial deposits formed by fluvial erosion of a hilly slope, their stratigraphic distribution was orderly and they likely remain in their original depositional positions. Material from the lower cultural layer, including carinated bladelet cores, medium-sized blade cores, and end/side scrapers on medium-sized blades, provides the data for this analysis. Statistical analysis of the bladelet cores indicates that the size and shape of bladelets from the cores of the Buiryokbastau-Bulak-1 site were very similar to those from the Shugnou site in Tajikistan. Similarly, six types of bladelet cores are common at both the Buiryokbastau-Bulak-1 site and at sites in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, especially the Shugnou site in Tajikistan. Therefore, the lower cultural layer appears to be an assemblage contemporaneous with the Early Upper Palaeolithic period in western Central Asia and related to the Kulbulakian tradition in which bladelet production predominated. The lower cultural layer at the Buiryokbastau-Bulak-1 site is a valuable example of Kulbulakian tradition industry in Kazakhstan territory, making it critical in assessing the structure of lithic industries during the EUP period in western Central Asia and in understanding how modern humans adapted to the central portions of Eurasia.