Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 52 (3) 2024   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2024.52.3.030-039

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Small Blade and Bladelet Production in Central Asia at the Turn of MIS 7 and 6: Cores from Kulbulak Layer 23

G.D. Pavlenok¹, S.A. Kogai1, G.A. Mukhtarov², and K.K. Pavlenok^{1, 2}

¹Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²National Center of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Pr. Mirzo Ulugbeka 81, Tashkent, 100170, Uzbekistan

We describe 27 parallel, narrow-faced, and burin-cores for small blades and bladelets from Kulbulak layer 23, Western Tien Shan, excavated in 2016 and 2017. In terms of typology, flat-faced (longitudinal and transverse), prismatic (carinated, subconical, and subcylindrical), and narrow-faced cores (including burin-cores) were identified. Scar pattern analysis suggests that regardless of the typological affiliation of cores, a uniform technological scheme was used—staggered sequence of blanks. This Middle Paleolithic non-prismatic pattern probably indicates the initial steps in the formation of a technology that would subsequently influence the Middle Paleolithic blade industries in western Central Asia and become one of the sources for the regional Upper Paleolithic in the second half of MIS 3. It is concluded that small blade technology emerged within Middle Paleolithic industries of western Central Asia at the turn of MIS 7 and 6. In the Obi-Rakhmat industry (MIS 5a), this technology is represented in its fully developed form.

Keywords: Bladelet production, scar pattern analysis, staggered sequence of blanks, Middle Paleolithic, MIS 6, MIS 7, Western Tien Shan