Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 45 (1) 2017   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.1.025-035

Annotation:  New Findings on the Middle Paleolithic of the Eastern Adriatic: The Earliest Settlement at Bioče, M Geomorphology and Quaternary Sediments at Archaeological Sites Near Anzhevka, Krasnoyarsk Territory Archaeological Sites as Markers of Hydrosystem Transformation in the Kurai and Chuya Basins, Southea Agricultural Practice on the Korean Peninsula Taking into Account the Origin of Rice Agriculture in Avtodrom 2—a Late Neolithic (Artyn Culture) Site in the Baraba Forest-Steppe, Western Siberia A Generalized Assessment of Cultural Changes at Stratified Sites: The Case of Chalcolithic Fortresse A Dugout from the Don River Exhibited at the State Historical Museum, Moscow: Discovery and Dating A House Model from Popudnya, Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture, Ukraine: A New Interpretation Old Turkic Statues from Apshiyakta, Central Altai: On Female Representations in Turkic Monumental Ar Early Medieval Armor from Southern Siberia Leather Artifacts from Tara, Western Siberia, Excavated in 2012–2014 The Morphology of Permanent Molars from the Paleolithic Layers of Denisova Cave An Anthropological Study of Mummified Remains from the Zeleny Yar Cemetery on the Lower Ob, Western Patterns of Growth and Development in Urban and Rural Children of the Northern Part of European Russ   

Archaeological Sites as Markers of Hydrosystem Transformation
in the Kurai and Chuya Basins, Southeastern Altai,
in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.
Summary of Findings and Paleogeographic Reconstructions

A.R. Agatova^{1, 2}, R.K. Nepop^{1, 2}, and I.Y. Slyusarenko^{3, 4}

¹Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²Ural Federal University, Mira 19, Yekaterinburg, 620002, Russia

³Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

⁴Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

This paper is the second in a series of publications on various aspects of the relationships between man and environment in the highlands of southeastern Altai. In these studies, we assess the impact of climatic changes (evidenced by processes of glaciation and deglaciation, the emergence of ice-dammed and residual lakes, soil and peat formation, and seismic activity) on the succession of sedentary and nomadic cultures, and on the ranges of their distribution, in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Geochronological data on the evolution of Late Pleistocene ice-dammed lakes and Holocene residual lacustrine systems within the Kurai and Chuya intermountain basins, including our new findings based on geomorphological, geoarchaeological, and geochronological approaches, were summarized in the first paper of the series. Using Paleolithic sites for assessing the time in the Late Pleistocene when the Chuya paleolake emptied is unwarranted, because their estimated age limits are wide, many are likely redeposited, and most finds are random. However, analysis of the spatial distribution of in situ sites spanning the period from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages has provided evidence regarding the transformation of Holocene hydrosystems. New radiocarbon dates indicate a substantial decrease of the Sartan glaciation before 14 ka cal BP, and desiccation of the last ice-dammed lakes within the Kurai and Chuya basins before 10 ka cal BP. The absence of Early Holocene archaeological sites in those areas may be due to the wide distribution of residual lakes in the bottoms of those depressions at that time.

Keywords: Intermountain depressions, ice-dammed lakes, hydrosystem transformation, archaeological sites, Late Paleolithic, radiocarbon dating, Late Pleistocene, Holocene, southeastern Altai.