Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Kazakhstan: Morphological, Technological and Typological Aspect of the Study of Bifacial Artefacts on the example of Handaxes from the Aral Sea Region and the Mugalzhar Mountains

Situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, actual Kazakhstan represents a strong scientific interest in understanding of the early human migrations “Out-of-Africa” to the Far East. During the whole Pleistocene, the arid conditions of this geographic area hindered the sediment accumulative deposits and the formation of stratified Paleolithic sites. Only studies of lithic industries from the sites with a surface cultural horizon seem possible. These analyses are based on a deflation degree of artefacts and on their technological and typological study followed by a comparison with other lithic collections from stratified and dated sites from surrounding grounds. This paper presents the morphological, technological and typological study of handaxes from the surface sites discovered in the Mugalzhar mountains and in the Aral Sea region. The goal of the study is to reconstitute the operational procedure (chaîne opératoire) in handaxe manufacture with the following comparison study between the handaxe samples. The lithic collection (20 artifacts) is housed at the A. Kh. Margulan Institute of Archaeology (Almaty, Kazakhstan). The analysis of data allows seeing the stark technological difference in the handaxe manufacture from the Mugalzhary mountains and from the Aral Sea region sites. As regards the typological analysis, the great majority of these handaxes from the Mugalzhary sites are characterized by fairly elongated and massive forms. Only on is of discoidal morphology and rather thin in thickness. The other are represented by one amygdaloidal, seven ovate, two lanceolate and two naviform (spear-shaped) handaxes. Any cordiform or triangular handanxes are not determined. Between the handaxes from the Aral Sea region sites, the majority is caracterised by elongated and rather thickened forms. Only one cordiform handaxe from the sample is thin. The elongated handaxes are represented by one amygdaloidal and by three lanceolate objects. It is expected that the handaxes from the Mugalzhary sites belong to more ancient period than the collection from the Aral Sea region sites. The predominance of both lanceolate handaxes and limandes is a typical dance of the Acheulean period, in particular, of its middle phase. The knapping technology used for handaxe manufacturing processes from the Aral Sea region sites and their typology (cordiform handaxes) are representative of the Middle Paleolithic.