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Middle Paleolithic sites of Katta Sai in western Tian Shan piedmont, Central Asiatic loess zone: Geoarchaeological investigation of the site formation and the integrity of the lithic assemblages
This paper presents the results of a large-scale fieldwork project of interdisciplinary studies on the Middle Paleolithic settlement in the western Tian Shan piedmont. A complex of newly discovered “loess Paleolithic” open-air sites near Yangiobod (Uzbekistan), Katta Sai, was excavated. The excavations allowed identification of a new variant of human adaptation in the regional Middle Paleolithic. In the light of the newest anthropological and genetic data, this new archaeological sites fit to the current studies on the relations between different human species during the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic in Central Asia. Geoarchaeological investigation of the sites has shown that the Paleolithic assemblages of Katta Sai are not preserved in situ. Cultural levels suffered from rill erosion, and most of the artifacts were re-deposited by water flow, and accumulated in secondary positions on the bottom of the branched rill system. This paper aims to reconstruct the subsequent processes of the site formation and to present the complicated geological situation of the studied sites of the Katta Sai complex, with implication for the archaeological interpretation of Paleolithic assemblages of the region.