PALAEOSILKROAD: Late Pleistocene Hominin Dispersals and Adaptations in Central Asia

PALAEOSILKROAD is a multi-disciplinary archaeological project aiming to discover Paleolithic sites in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor and test the hypothesis that Pleistocene dispersals correlated with climatic pulses during the last Glacial Cycle (ca. 110 000 – 15 000 years ago). Following six years of survey and excavation that yielded 95 new caves and over a dozen new, stratified Pleistocene and Holocene Stone Age sites, we are continuing with excavations at the open-air sites of Tikenekti in the Toraigyr Range of the Ili Alatau (photo) and Yntymaq in the Trans-Ili Alatau, as well as several cave sites in the Qaratau and Tian Shan piedmont, Tuttybulaq, Aqtogai, and Alpysbaev Caves. These sites will give us a much more complete view of human-environment relationships in this vast and largely unknown region, shedding light on the unique challenges that early humans faced during the past 50,000 years.