Dust storms or landslides? Investigating drivers of settlement, abandonment and landscape change at a Bronze Age farming site in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

A growing body of archaeological, palaeoecological and geographical research into Middle to Late Holocene human occupation of mountain Central Asia indicates a variety of adaptable farming and herding strategies that allowed past populations to occupy a range of environmental niches. These studies explore human-environment dynamics, considering the ways past populations both driving and responding to environmental change. At the Bronze Age site Chap (Kyrgyzstan), two phases of agricultural occupation are separated by a culturally sterile, thick-bedded loess-like sediment. From sediment samples through the occupation and hiatus deposits, we analyse environmental proxies including sediment grain size, magnetic susceptibility and pollen to explore processes relating to this deposition. It is likely that aridification at around 4200 years Before Present was a significant driver of dust deposition, possibly enhanced by anthropogenic factors. An apparent climatic amelioration and diversified agricultural package after around 3000 years Before Present may have allowed the later re-settlement of the site.