文档介绍：Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1999
The Paleolithic of Central Asia
Leonid B. Vishnyatsky1
The Lower Paleolithic of Central Asia is represented by several sealed and
more or less firmly dated Lower-Middle Pleistocene cave and open-air
sites in the southeastern part and by more numerous surface occurrences
throughout the region. The assemblages assigned to the Lower Paleolithic
form two rather distinct groups, one remarkable for well-made handaxes
and the other characterized by cores and flakes with no handaxes. The
distribution map of pebble industries and industries with handaxes shows
that while the latter originate from the western regions of Central Asia, the
former are concentrated in the eastern part of the area. The Middle Paleolithic
assemblages of Central Asia do not form a single plex. Their
variability in time is difficult to assess, but variation in space is obvious. Very
few Upper Paleolithic sites in this region are known. At the same time, their
stone industries are very diverse and most of them differ sharply from each
other and from sites in adjacent regions.
KEY WORDS: Paleolithic; Central Asia; stone artifacts.
INTRODUCTION
"Central Asia" is used here to designate the lands stretching from the
Caspian Sea in the west to Tien-Shan in the east and from the southern
Ural foothills and the Irtysh River in the north to the Pamirs and Kopetdag
in the south. The region under consideration includes the territories of five
1Institute for the History of Material Culture, Dvortsovaya nab. 18, St. Petersburg 191186,
Russia.
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70 Vishnyatsky
nations (former Soviet republics): Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Tadzhikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. This is a huge area with highly variable
natural conditions, and different parts of it have had different geological
and environmental histories. I begin with a brief, geographically arranged
survey of