Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Central Asia is a crucial region for understanding human history. In recent years, considerable archaeological research has provided important new insights into the complex story of Stone Age occupation in this region. Through the identification of new archaeological sites, the reevaluation of old collections, and the application of novel analytical techniques, archaeologists are documenting this region’s significance in shaping technological and cultural evolution from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. This session will highlight new research that advances our understanding of the Stone Age period of Central Asia and its broader implications for the study of prehistory and human behavioral-cultural evolution.

Other Keywords
Asia: Central Asia

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • Agent-based dispersal simulations reveal multiple rapid northern routes for the second Neanderthal dispersal from Western to Eastern Eurasia: implications for Central Asia (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Coco.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Genetic and archaeological evidence imply a second major movement of Neanderthals from Western to Central and Eastern Eurasia sometime in the Late Pleistocene. Genetic data suggest a date of 120-80ka for the dispersal and the archaeological record provides an earliest date of arrival in the Altai by ca. 60ka. Because the number of...

  • Giving relevance to the old: Training Kazakhstani students in Stone Age methods (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Reed Coil.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kazakhstan has a rich archaeological past, but much of the focus by national and international archaeologists continues to be on Bronze Age, Iron Age, and later periods. In recent years, Paleolithic researchers have developed projects to expand our knowledge on the deeper past and the hominins that made this region their home. Here, we...

  • Late Upper Palaeolithic Evidence Of Human Settlement In The Northern Tian Shan (Kazakhstan): New Results From Tikenekti 2 (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Abay Namen.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

  • Middle Paleolithic industries of Mongolia: chronology and technological variability (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Arina Khatsenovich.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Paleolithic is represented mainly by its final stage in Mongolia, and chronologically overlaps with the appearance of Initial Upper Paleolithic large blade technology in the region. Although human fossils associated with archaeological remains have not yet been found in Mongolia, presumably several human populations bearing...

  • Paleolithic fieldwork in the Upper Zeravshan Valley, Tajikistan: first results and perspectives (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Yossi Zaidner.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Zeravshan River, which drains the north-western part of the Pamir and Tian-Shan Mountains, is a part of what was recently named the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor; the piedmont sandwiched between the desert and high Mountains of Pamir, Tianshan, and Altai. This corridor provided a refugium for human populations during periods of...

  • A preliminary climate-settlement framework for the last glacial cycle in Central Asia based on data from Kazakhstan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Radu Iovita.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Central Asia has emerged as a crucial locus for understanding recent human evolution in Eurasia. It is particularly important for understanding adaptation during dispersal, as it is both the locus of interaction among several archaic and modern human populations and, at the same time, a region that lies on the threshold of aridity. At...

  • Reconstructing Stone Tool Function at Tikenekti-2, Kazakhstan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Borsodi.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding hominin interaction with their environment is crucial for identifying what parts of everyday life were integral to survival during the Late Pleistocene of Central Asia. Rapid changes in climate would have mandated adaptation by hominins traveling through or living in this region. This is especially true for the hominins...

  • Spring Landscapes as Persistent Places of Human Occupation: a Multi-disciplinary Approach Investigating the Palaeolithic of Kazakhstan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aristeidis Varis.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first dispersals of Homo sapiens into Asia occurred during the Late Pleistocene (ca. 129,000 – 11,700 years ago) and involved traversing arid regions. Springs are groundwater systems that likely played a vital role in human expansion across arid areas where surface waters, like rivers and lakes, were scarce. Despite this, the...

  • Stratified Stone Age sites are few and hard to find: A welcome exception at the Koken site in Kazakhstan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Dupuy.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Late period hunter-gatherers of the Eurasian Steppe remain among the most understudied and least deciphered societies in the archaeology of Kazakhstan. A shortage of stratified or well-preserved late Palaeolithic and early Holocene campsites places a scholarly dependence on lithic assemblages that are often not pinned to radiometric...

  • Tracing modern human migration to Central Asia though studying high mountain caves in Western Tian Shan (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Malgorzata Kot.

    This is an abstract from the "Advances in Stone Age Archaeology of Central Asia" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) is a term describing lithic assemblages dated roughly to 50–40 ka, showing traits of the emergence of blade technology, traditionally associated with the expansion of modern human groups. Several sites with IUP traits have been recently recognised in West Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), but...