(ORDO NEWS) — The results of a new study show that the steppe, semi-desert and desert zones of Central Asia were once the most favorable environment for hominins and their spread across Eurasia.
An international team of scientists has set itself the task of expanding the limited knowledge about the activities of early hominins in the Central Asian lowlands.
The team collected and analyzed paleoclimatic and archaeological data from Central Asia during the Pleistocene (approximately 2.58 million – 11.7 thousand years ago), including, among other things, data on stone tools and analysis of mineral deposits in southern Uzbekistan.
“We collected data on Paleolithic finds from across Central Asia, creating a dataset of 132 Paleolithic sites – the largest dataset of its kind,” says one of the study’s authors. “This allowed us to look at the distribution of these sites since the Middle Pleistocene.”
They argue that Central Asia was a favorable habitat during times when warm interglacial phases coincided with periods when the Caspian Sea experienced consistently high water levels, leading to greater moisture availability and more temperate conditions in other arid regions.
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