Project leader: Jan-Pieter Buylaert, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Project duration: 2021-2024
Participating countries: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Tajikistan
Funding from NordForsk: 14,955,177 NOK
Project website: THOCA - Home
When did humans arrive in Central Asia and what was the environment and climate like at the time? Were there waves of migration of different species and did they only move when the climate was favourable, for example in the warm periods between glaciations? These questions are important because if we truly want to understand who we are today we need to understand our evolutionary past.
Impact story
The researchers from the project have carried out field work at different sites around the Khovaling Loess Plateau in southern Tajikistan. They have among other things collected sediment samples for chronology and climate proxies, and samples for biomarkers and ancient DNA.
“With this project we wanted to give Nordic scientists access to new research areas, establish new links with Tajik research, and provide a broad cross-disciplinary education to young scientists. Bringing together researchers from different Nordic countries and from different research disciplines creates Nordic added value,” says Jan-Pieter Buylaert.
Key findings
- Chronology:
The chronology teams have produced detailed independent chronologies for the sites studied in the Khovaling Loess Plateau in Tajikistan. The new chronologies represent the most comprehensive chronological records in Central Asia and beyond, as well as the first absolute chronology of the Early Palaeolithic in Central Asia. This has been done using the latest technologies in numerical dating, and by developing novel tools that now are being applied to other sites around the world. The new chronologies are crucial for accurate interpretation of the archaeological, environmental, and climatological records preserved at these sites. - Archaeology:
Expansion of our knowledge of the migration history of Central Asia to include occupations along the riparian corridor during cold (glacial) periods as well as warm (interglacial) periods. Our team further established that the use of fire by hominins occurred as far back as 600,000 years ago in this region, and that our ancestors were likely critical architects of vegetation in the landscapes they inhabited. - Climate:
The project has generated some of the most detailed climate records produced in Central Asia for the last 1.2 million years, including quantitative estimates of precipitation and temperature, as well as wind direction, based on a range of novel and established proxies. The findings demonstrate constancy in dust-transporting winds but shifting precipitation regimes over periods of human occupation. The team has established new analytical approaches in mineral magnetic and carbonate nodule analyses that are widely applicable in past climate science. - Overall:
Thousands of lithic artifacts were discovered in the Khovaling Loess Plateau. These discoveries have expanded our understanding of the early humans that occupied Central Asia through time, such as the Early Palaeolithic Karatau Culture that thrived between ~600 and ~400 thousand years ago. By combining these archaeological discoveries with new independent chronologies and reconstructions of environmental changes, we have obtained a much better understanding of the factors that drove human migrations in Central Asia and the surrounding regions during the Middle to Late Pleistocene (last ~800,000 years).
Key outputs
The project has established a firm Nordic network among researchers from Aarhus University, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Oslo University, Uppsala University and Copenhagen University. Furthermore, this network has expanded to include researchers from Central Asian countries (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), Hungary, Germany and China. This expanded network has led to a mosaic of new collaborative efforts that highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the THOCA project and ensures its long-lasting legacy.
The THOCA project has rejuvenated archaeological and palaeoclimatological research in Central Asia, an understudied region with respect to our understanding of human dispersal across the globe and past climate change.
The project has also boosted local interest in the cultural heritage of Tajikistan. Investigations in the Khovaling Loess Plateau area have led to the establishment of a local (Tajik) working group which has the task to promote the Khovaling loess palaeolithic sites and eventually get them listed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The project will have produced 4 Nordic PhD theses (DTU, Aarhus, Oslo and Uppsala) and a long list of peer-reviewed publications.