Absolute chronology of the Early Palaeolithic Karatau Culture in Central Asia

Abstract Central Asia represents a key region for our understanding of early human dispersal patterns, because it served as a migration corridor that linked the Levant and southern Caucasus with Northeast Asia. However, no Early Palaeolithic sites in Central Asia are anchored with reliable age constraints, including the thick loess-palaeosol sections in Tajikistan that recorded early human activities and environmental changes over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. This lack of absolute age constraints is presently a key factor limiting our understanding of the early human occupation history of this region. Here, we provide a comprehensive description and an absolute chronological framework for the Early Palaeolithic Karatau Culture; defined by the rich lithic assemblages found in palaeosols in the Khovaling Loess Plateau, Tajikistan. Age constraints are provided through multi-method analysis of three loess-palaeosol sections in the Khovaling Loess Plateau, combining luminescence ages, cosmogenic 26 Al- 10 Be concentrations, and magnetostratigraphic boundaries into a probabilistic inverse age-depth model. This model shows that the Karatau Culture flourished with the onset of Marine Isotope Stage 15, thrived during Marine Isotope Stage 13 and 11, but disappeared around onset of Marine Isotope Stage 10. We frame the archaeological occupations within local and regional ecological settings to better understand the drivers of Pleistocene human migrations in Central Asia.