New Stratifi ed Paleolithic Sites in Akhangaran Valley (Uzbekistan)

The paper deals with survey data recorded in 2021 in Uzbekistan by joint team of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS, Warsaw University, and National Center of Archaeology Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Based on 2018-2019 data, we carried out local excavations, and the Paleolithic artifacts were recorded in the cross-sections of two sites—Ertashsai-12 and Kuksarai-2 located on the right side of the Akhangaran valley in its midstream. The stratified archaeological material of Ertashsai-12 occurs in three lithological positions (layers 2b, 3, and 4) and is represented mainly by fragments of flakes and wastes of lithic production. Together with the surface complex, these materials can be attributed to the Middle to Upper Paleolithic. Materials from the Kuksarai-2 site are more representative; they occur in four layers (layers 2, 3, 5, and 6). In total, the lithic collection includes 43 artifacts. The technical and typological characteristics of the stratified part of the Kuksarai-2 collection are consistent with the appearance of the exposed materials and contain features of the Levallois technology with an admixture of features transitional from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic. The material complexes of Ertashsai-12 and Kuksarai-2 discovered in the buried state are probably correlated with periodic and long-term visits to these territories by human paleopopulations, and the ancient population was a carrier of the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic process skills. In future, the presence of stratified complexes in the landscape situation of low mountains with the process features of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic can provide a new array of data on the problems of correlating features of the material culture with specific species of ancient hominins, as well as in the context of their relationship with the environment.