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Understanding the factors that control the distribution of Palaeolithic sites comprises a fundamental objective of archaeological science. Geoarchaeological approaches focusing on site formation processes have been widely applied to demonstrate the factors that influence the formation and preservation of Palaeolithic sites over time. However, available knowledge is heavily skewed towards extensively researched parts of the world and focuses primarily on the site-specific analyses of landmark Palaeolithic sites. In this context, no previous study used a systematic geoarchaeological approach to investigate the impact of formation processes on a regional level in Central Asia, despite the critical role of Central Asia in hominin evolution and dispersals. Furthermore, as the formation history of low-density archaeological sites remains unaddressed, the role of low-density sites in hominin hunter-gatherer settlement patterns remains elusive, even for regions with a rich Palaeolithic record. On this basis, this PhD thesis performed a multi-scalar approach to the analysis of the interplay between formation processes and settlement patterns, by investigating site distribution on a regional scale in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and a local scale in the Swabian Jura, Germany, Europe. Paper I, “In search of a Palaeolithic Silk Road in Kazakhstan”, provides a geoarchaeological framework for contextualizing a field survey in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) of Kazakhstan. The field survey explores the distribution of Palaeolithic sites in a crucial region for Late Pleistocene hominin evolution, testing the fundamental assumptions that govern predictive models of hominin dispersals and behavior in Central Asia. The results revealed that three geomorphic settings, karst, loess, and spring deposits, are the most promising for the formation and preservation of archaeological sites. A detailed discussion explores the systematic biases that influence data collection and interpretation, according to the type of geomorphic context in which the sites are recovered. In the framework of this systematic geoarchaeological analysis, a primary aim was to investigate the formation processes that influence the formation and preservation of Pleistocene deposits in the most promising geomorphic settings in Kazakhstan, the caves and rockshelters of the Qaratau mountains (Paper II). Paper II, “The effect of formation processes on the frequency of Palaeolithic cave sites in Semi-Arid Zones: Insights from Kazakhstan”, combines site-specific data, extracted from the micromorphological analysis of selected caves, and landscape data, extracted from survey observations, to not only interpret but also assess the completeness of the known regional archaeological record. In this way, it sets a novel basis for investigating the formation and preservation of cave deposits in Kazakhstan, with broader implications for the distribution of Palaeolithic cave sites in Central Asia. The results demonstrated that cave formation processes are tied to regional geomorphic and climatic factors, with implications for caves in similar semi-arid settings. Pleistocene deposits are scarce, while aeolian loess-like cave sediments and reworking processes of varying intensity dominate the depositional sequences. Furthermore, hillslope erosion and loess cover impact the long-term preservation of caves in the landscape. Given the regional scarcity of Pleistocene archaeology in the caves of Kazakhstan, emphasis was given in exploring the formation processes of low-density cave sites and their role in settlement patterns in a more local scale (Paper III). Paper III, “Low density occupation sites from the Swabian Jura: Implications for site formation processes and settlement patterns”, applies a site-specific approach based on micromorphological analysis, to explore the formation history of selected low-density and anthropogenically sterile cave sites located in the Swabian Jura, Germany, one of Europe’s richest regions in terms of Late Pleistocene Palaeolithic assemblages. The results showed that low-density cave sites are dominated by phosphatic features associated with carnivores, demonstrating the use of cave spaces by both predators and hominins. Most importantly, the absence of dense archaeological horizons is not attributed to intense geogenic processes, but rather to hominin intentionality. In this regard, the low-density cave sites reflect sporadic hominin use, most probably associated with specific mobility strategies. Overall, this PhD thesis identified a clear association between formation processes and the distribution of archaeological sites based on both site-specific and landscape-specific analyses. The regional scale geoarchaeological analysis in Kazakhstan demonstrated that in-built biases characterize the archaeological record in different geomorphic contexts, while geogenic processes triggered by the semi-arid environment may explain the removal of caves from the landscape leading to a low-density distribution of archaeological cave sites. At the same time, the local scale geoarchaeological analysis in the Swabian Jura demonstrated that hominin intentionality and not geogenic processes control the formation of a sporadic low- density archaeological cave record. By understanding the processes that shape the distribution of archaeological sites or the formation of low-density sequences over a given area, we are able to assess the completeness of the archaeological record and construct more accurate interpretations regarding hominin dispersals and settlement patterns.

This study examines the mechanical properties of lithic raw materials from the Upper Palaeolithic sites in Kazakhstan and offers insight into their quality.

Only a handful of stratified sites are known in loess, spring, and river contexts in the northern piedmonts of the Tian Shan, and the majority are dated to the Upper Palaeolithic. These sites have been studied from a geoarchaeological perspective, however, lithic procurement activities remain unknown. To address this deficiency, we present the results of the extensive field surveys aimed at locating prehistoric raw material sources in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor of Kazakhstan. We also provide a detailed petrographic description of the lithologies exploited during the Palaeolithic of Kazakhstan. Based on the field survey results, combined with petrographic data, we conclude that the direct procurement strategy was the most common at the stratified sites. However, evidence of both direct and embedded procurement is found in the northern piedmonts of the Ili Alatau range at the site of Maibulaq. Additionally, we highlight the variation of chert lithologies within the larger Qaratau region, laying a foundation for future provenance studies.

The area of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) follows the foothills and piedmont zones around the northern limits of Asia’s interior mountains, connecting two important areas for human evolution: the Fergana valley and the Siberian Altai. Prior research has suggested the IAMC may have provided an area of connected refugia from harsh climates during the Pleistocene. To date, this region contains very few secure, dateable Pleistocene sites, but its widely available carbonate deposits present an opportunity for discovering cave sites, which generally preserve longer sequences and organic remains. Here we present two models for predicting karstic cave and rockshelter features in the Kazakh portion of the IAMC. The 2018 model used a combination of lithological data and unsupervised landform classification, while the 2019 model used feature locations from the results of our 2017-2018 field surveys in a supervised classification using a minimum-distance classifier and morphometric features derived from the ASTER digital elevation model (DEM). We present the results of two seasons of survey using two iterations of the karstic cave models (2018 and 2019), and evaluate their performance during survey. In total, we identified 96 cave and rockshelter features from 2017-2019. We conclude that this model-led approach significantly reduces the target area for foot survey.