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Analysis of plant‐wax biomarkers from sedimentary sequences can enable past environmental and hydrological reconstruction and provide insights into past hominin adaptations. However, biomarker preservation in desert contexts has been considered unlikely given the sparse nature of the vegetation within the landscape. Here we evaluate the preservation of n‐alkanes and fatty acids collected from four depositional sequences associated with archaeological contexts in the Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia, and the Thar Desert, India. Pleistocene and Holocene samples were selected to understand the effects of age on preservation. The results of molecular distribution patterns and indices, particularly the high carbon preference index and average chain length, show the preservation of plant‐wax biomarkers in both the Holocene and Pleistocene desert sequences, while δ13C values and organic content provide insights into the vegetation contributing to the plant‐wax organic pool. This study provides a baseline for understanding human–environment interactions and for reconstructing changes in arid land habitats of relevance to hominins during the Quaternary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asia hosts the world's youngest Acheulean sites, with dated records typically restricted to sub-humid landscapes. The Thar Desert marks a major adaptive boundary between monsoonal Asia to the east and the Saharo-Arabian desert belt to the west, making it a key threshold to examine patterns of hominin ecological adaptation and its impacts on patterns of behaviour, demography and dispersal. Here, we investigate Palaeolithic occupations at the western margin of the South Asian monsoon at Singi Talav, undertaking new chronometric, sedimentological and palaeoecological studies of Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic occupation horizons. We constrain occupations of the site between 248 and 65 thousand years ago. This presents the first direct palaeoecological evidence for landscapes occupied by South Asian Acheulean-producing populations, most notably in the main occupation horizon dating to 177 thousand years ago. Our results illustrate the potential role of the Thar Desert as an ecological, and demographic, frontier to Palaeolithic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late Pleistocene palaeoenvironments in the Thar Desert (India), located at the eastern extent of the Saharo-Arabian desert belt, have fluctuated considerably as a result of the varying range and intensity of the Indian summer monsoon. Phases of widespread Pleistocene aridity are well documented in the Thar Desert, but research focusing on humid proxies is critical to examine how the region may have facilitated population expansions across southern Asia. At Katoati, located on the northeast margin of the Thar Desert, the combination of field recording of sediment sections with detailed analyses (micromorphology, stable isotope, loss on ignition, magnetic susceptibility, and X-ray fluorescence) from an archaeological site identify a series of hominin occupations during phases of enhanced humidity between ~96 and 60 ka. A gradient of humidity on the eastern margin of the Thar Desert during the late Pleistocene is identified, with the periodic humidity evident at Katoati occurring more frequently and with longer duration towards the southern margin. This uneven distribution of humidity in the Thar Desert is likely to have strongly influenced when and where hominin populations could expand into and across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Point technologies form a key component of Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age industries across the Old World. However, only limited attention has been paid to the appearance of point technologies in the South Asian context. Two recent studies have indicated that the lack of Indian point technologies that are analogous to those known from the African Middle Stone Age and Arabian Middle Palaeolithic presents the basis to reject models for modern human dispersals into India associated with Middle Palaeolithic technologies. This study examines the role point technologies play in the Middle Palaeolithic record of the Thar Desert and situates them within the wider context of South Asia and adjacent regions to the west. A synthesis of existing evidence indicates that points form a key component of Middle Palaeolithic industries in the Thar Desert. New descriptions of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from the Thar Desert highlight the repeated presence of debitage and façonnage approaches which suggest the use of specific reduction strategies in point production, rather than opportunistic or expedient methods. These results are placed in the wider context of the role points have played in Middle Palaeolithic reduction strategies within South Asia. Given the presence of point technologies in the Thar Desert that are comparable with contemporaneous technologies in North Africa and Arabia, we suggest that Middle Palaeolithic dispersal models cannot be rejected on the basis of their absence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Thar Desert marks the transition from the Saharo-Arabian deserts to the Oriental biogeographical zone and is therefore an important location in understanding hominin occupation and dispersal during the Upper Pleistocene. Here, we report the discovery of stratified Middle Palaeolithic assemblages at Katoati in the north-eastern Thar Desert, dating to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5 and the MIS 4–3 boundary, during periods of enhanced humidity. Hominins procured cobbles from gravels at the site as evidenced by early stages of stone tool reduction, with a component of more formalised point production. The MIS 5c assemblages at Katoati represent the earliest securely dated Middle Palaeolithic occupation of South Asia. Distinctive artefacts identified in both MIS 5 and MIS 4–3 boundary horizons match technological entities observed in Middle Palaeolithic assemblages in South Asia, Arabia and Middle Stone Age sites in the Sahara. The evidence from Katoati is consistent with arguments for the dispersal of Homo sapiens populations from Africa across southern Asia using Middle Palaeolithic technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Thar Desert, located in western South Asia, marks a major global biogeographic boundary and a major adaptive threshold for the eastward expansions of modern humans from Africa across Asia. Examining the framework of palaeoenvironmental change in this region, both in terms of the regional manifestation of global climate change and the physical geography of the landscape, is therefore important to understand how modern humans first engaged with this significant shift in ecology. Here, we present evidence for the oldest chronometrically dated evidence for fluvial activity within this region, located at the Nal Quarry site in the central Thar Desert. We use luminescence dating of alluvial facies to demonstrate phases of fluvial activity at the site at ∼172–174, 140–150, 79–95 and 26 thousand years ago. This result substantially extends existing evidence for fluvial activity within the Thar Desert, as well as overlapping with evidence from the southern and eastern Thar desert indicating increased fluvial activity during the Last Interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 5), whereas the cessation of fluvial deposition at Nal Quarry is contemporaneous with the onset of activity within the Ghaggar-Hakkra channel in the northern and western Thar Desert. Critically, the phases of fluvial activity identified at Nal overlaps with substantial behavioural change across South Asia, as well as the wider expansion of modern humans across the continent. This research illuminates a dynamic fluvial landscape that existed in the late Middle Pleistocene and early Late Pleistocene at a key threshold for modern human dispersals. • We identify the deep Quaternary fluvial deposits in the central Thar Desert. • OSL dating constrains major episodes of fluvial activity to MIS 6 and 5. • Fluvial activity at Nal predates other fluvial deposits across the Thar Desert. • First ground truthing and dating of results of remote sensing studies. • Results highlight fluvial dynamism across Thar Desert at key threshold for human dispersal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]