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The earliest well-dated archeological site in the hyper-arid Tarim Basin and its implications for prehistoric human migration and climatic change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

WenXia Han ,
LuPeng Yu ,
ZhongPing Lai ,
David Madsen  and
Shengli Yang
WenXia Han
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Salt Lake Resources and Chemistry, Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
LuPeng Yu*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources of Northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, Xining 810012, China State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
ZhongPing Lai*
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Salt Lake Resources and Chemistry, Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
David Madsen
Affiliation:
Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Shengli Yang
Affiliation:
College of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210046, China
*
*Correspondence to: L. Yu, Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources of Northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, Xining 810012, China.
**Correspondence to: Z. Lai, Key Laboratory of Salt Lake Resources and Chemistry, Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China.E-mail addresses:yulupeng319@126.com, yulupeng@gmail.com (L. Yu), zplai@isl.ac.cn (Z. Lai).
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Abstract

The routes and timing of human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are crucial for understanding the evolution of Tibetan populations and associated paleoclimatic conditions. Many archeological sites have been found in/around the Tarim Basin, on the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Unfortunately, most of these sites are surface sites and cannot be directly dated. Their ages can only be estimated based on imprecise artifact comparisons. We recently found and dated an archeological site on a terrace along the Keriya River. Our ages indicate that the site was occupied at ~7.0–7.6 ka, making it the earliest well-dated archeological site yet identified in the Tarim Basin. This suggests that early human foragers migrated into this region prior to ~7.0–7.6 ka during the early to mid-Holocene climatic optimum, which may have provided the impetus for populating the region. We hypothesize that the Keriya River, together with the other rivers originating from the TP, may have served as access routes onto the TP for early human foragers. These rivers may also have served as stepping stones for migration further west into the now hyper-arid regions of the Tarim Basin, leading ultimately to the development of the Silk Road.

Keywords

OSL and 14C datingArcheological siteTarim BasinTibetan PlateauPrehistoric human migrationSilk Road through the Taklimakan Desert
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , July 2014 , pp. 66 - 72
Copyright
University of Washington

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