The Middle Zarafshan Model of the Transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic in Uzbekistan

Abstract

As a result of studies of the joint Uzbek-Russian international archaeological expedition in the Tashkent
Oasis between 1998 and 2011, the Obirahmat model of the transition from the Middle to Late Paleolithic
was developed. It has been scientifically demonstrated that this model emerged locally in close contact
with Middle Palaeolithic cultures of the Near East and Zagros and developed into the Late Palaeolithic
culture. Late Palaeolithic sites of the Tashkent oasis, such as Obirahmat, Kyzylalma-2, Kulbulak
and Dodekatym 1 and 2 are classified as monuments of the Obirahmat model. Traditionally, Middle
Paleolithic cultures have been defined according to F. Bordes’ system, based on materials from France.
Furthermore, the onset of the Late Paleolithic worldwide was often viewed as a result of revolutionary
cultural leaps associated with the emergence of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens).
Recent research, however, suggests that the transition from the Middle to Late Paleolithic occurred
gradually and evolutionarily, with cultural elements characteristic of the Late Paleolithic beginning to
form as early as the Middle Paleolithic. The article highlights the Middle Zarafshan transition from
Middle to Late Paleolithic on the basis of archaeological materials of the Zirabulak site.The monument
is located 100 kilometres north-west of Samarkand, in the foothills of the Ziauddin Mountains, at an
altitude of 475 metres above sea level. In addition, the differences and similarities of this model from
the Obirahmat variant in the Tashkent Oasis have been determined. The similarity of these variants
lies in the development of both cultures on the basis of Levalloisian technologies, in the presence of
edge-faceted both edges cores, prismatic and Levalloisian cores, as well as chisel tools, carinated end
scrapers and ordinal burins. The differences between them, undoubtedly related to palaeoenvironmental
conditions, can be traced in the absence in Obirahmat of Zirabulak nuclei splittinges for the removal of
index finger knives and vice versa, the absence in the Middle Zarafshan Palaeolithic of the technology of
voluminous cores, widely represented in Obirahmat. Besides, in the complexes of the Obirahmat variant
only a variety of carinated end-scrapers (caréné) is found, while in Zirabulak scrapers characteristic of the
Orignac culture of Western Europe, such as end-scraper with nose (à museau), peripheral, rounded, etc.,
were found. The above-mentioned differences, though possibly of solitary origin, allow us to distinguish
the Early Late Palaeolithic variants in the Tashkent oasis and the Zarafshan valley into separate variants.