Neolithic Station in Kizil-Kum Desert, Soviet Central Asia

Abstract

DURING 1940 S. P. Tolstov, Ethnographical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., located a Neolithic station near Dzhanbas-Kala No. 4, which lies not far from the Aral Sea in the Kizil-Kum Desert, northeast of Turt-Kul on the Amu-Darya (Oxus River) in the Uzbek S.S.R. Up to the summer of 1945 this was the oldest site in the entire region. The objects excavated included crude pottery, bone and stone tools. The discovery of this Neolithic station in the Kizil-Kum Desert adds yet another link to the chain of sites extending from China to Morocco. Man in a Neolithic phase of culture lived not only in the greater part of the territory lying relatively adjacent to Dzhanbas-Kala, but also in that almost continuous line of 9,000 miles of desert from Gobi and Takla Makan of Central Asia, Kizil-Kum and Kara-Kum of Soviet Central Asia, Thar of Baluchistan, Dasht-i-Lut and Dasht-i-Kavir in Iran, Nefud and Rub 'al Khali of Arabia to the western limits of the Sahara. The location of additional Neolithic sites in Soviet Central Asia will be followed with especial interest.