Stratigraphy and geochronology of the Kuldara Early Paleolithic Site (Tajikistan)

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Abstract

The Kuldara site, situated near the Khovaling loess plateau in Southern Tajikistan, stands as the most ancient stratified site of the Early Paleolithic in Central Asia. Here, at the end of the 20th century, stone tools were discovered in pedocomplexes 11 and 12, with an estimated age of ~0.9 million years according to geological data. This discovery marked the archaeological materials from Kuldara as evidence of the earliest penetration of ancient people into the southeastern regions of Central Asia. However, despite the significant importance of the site in understanding the conditions and chronology of the initial settlement in the region, a chronostratigraphic study of the complete section of loess-paleosol series at the site had never been conducted before. Consequently, the regional correlation of this monument was critically challenging.

We present the results of a comprehensive study of the stratigraphic sequence of the Kuldara section from modern soil to pedocomplex 11 on the cliff of the eastern bank of the same-named stream. We conducted soil description and detailed paleomagnetic research, measured magnetic susceptibility and its frequency dependence, and carried out archaeological work. Based on the obtained data, we performed, for the first time, a correlation with the oxygen isotope scale of the World Ocean, allowing us to estimate the age of the exposed pedocomplexes and identify significant erosion events in the upper part of the section. As a result of the archaeological work conducted, a collection of stone tools was obtained from pedocomplexes 4, 5, 6, and 10. These artifacts indicate the regular presence of ancient people at the site after the initial episode of settlement around ~0.9 million years ago, and the conducted chronostratigraphic correlation enables a more precise estimation of the timing of individual stages of this presence.

About the authors

E. P. Kulakova

Shmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth RAS; Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS

Author for correspondence.
Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow; Novosibirsk

A. A. Anoikin

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Novosibirsk

T. U. Khudjageldiev

Donish Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography NAST

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Tajikistan, Dushanbe

P. M. Sosin

Institute of Water Problems, Hydropower and Ecology NAST

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Tajikistan, Dushanbe

O. A. Tokareva

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS; Institute of Geography RAS

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Novosibirsk; Moscow

A. Ch. Karayev

Donish Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography NAST

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Tajikistan, Dushanbe

A. G. Rybalko

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Novosibirsk

R. N. Kurbanov

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS; Institute of Geography RAS; Lomonosov Moscow State University

Email: ek.kula@yandex.ru

Faculty of Geography

Russian Federation, Novosibirsk; Moscow; Moscow

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. Location of the study region (Kuldara site) on the map of Tajikistan (а), position of the Kuldara site and other Obi-Mazar River valley sites of loessic Paleolithic (б), and position of 1981—1984 and 2021 archaeological excavations of the Kuldarа site on the orthophotoplan of the digital surface model (в).

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3. Fig. 2. Perspective photograph of a general view of the section on the right side of ravine, lithological column of the uncovered section, and photographs of lithologic differences.

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4. Fig. 3. Lithologic chart of the Kuldara section (а), field magnetic susceptibility curve (MS) (б), frequency dependence of magnetic susceptibility (χfd, %) (в), magnetic declination (D) and inclination (I) curves (г, д), virtual geomagnetic pole (VGP) latitude (е), and magnetostratigraphic column (ж). The erosional boundaries are marked with a wavy line. 1 — pedocomplex (PC), 2 — loess (L), 3 — petrocalcic horizons, 4 — carbonate nodules, 5 — erosion boundaries.

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5. Fig. 4. Characteristic orthogonal NRM demagnetization plots, stereograms and demagnetization plots for samples from different levels of the Kuldara section.

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6. Fig. 5. Archaeological material from the Kuldara site (excavations in 2021): (а) — flake from PC 10; (б) — flake from PC 6; (в) — core from PC 5; (г) — chip; (д, е) — cores from PC 4 (drawing by T. U. Khudjageldiev).

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7. Fig. 6. Summary chronostratigraphic scheme of the Kuldara site: artifacts (а), lithologic column (б), magnetic zonality scale (в), magnetic susceptibility curve (г), frequency dependence of magnetic susceptibility (д), marine isotope stages (е), Quaternary stratigraphic subdivisions (ж), and global magnetostratigraphic scale (з). MIS is given by (Lisiecki, Raymo, 2005), geologic scale by (Cohen, Gibbard, 2019).

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