DUSHANBE, 05.07.2023 (NIAT Khovar) – The remains of a 14,000-year-old human settlement have been discovered by archaeologists in the highlands of the Eastern Pamirs, reports the President of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan Farhod Rahimi.

“Scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan and 8 other states — Russia, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Poland, the U.S. and France participated in excavations in the high-mountain rock shelter Kurtek in the Eastern Pamirs. Thanks to modern research methods, it was possible to obtain data that people appeared there about 14,000 years ago, much earlier than expected. Research continues,” the scientist said in an interview.

Previously, it was believed that the first people settled there no earlier than 8,000 years ago.

Prior to this, major archaeological research of the Eastern Pamirs was carried out only in the 60-70s of the last century. Then it was believed that 8,000 years ago these territories were covered with a glacier.

The international expedition resumed research in 2018-2019. Scientists have applied methods such as paleoecological approach, absolute dating, zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical analyses, carpological analysis (the study of ancient seeds) and DNA analysis of found animal teeth.

“The study revealed bonfires, stone artifacts, not far from which lay a small fragment of an animal bone, obviously chipped off with the participation of a person (in the natural environment, a bone does not fragment like this, usually such damage occurs when a person breaks it, for example, to get bone marrow) . This fragment was sent for radiocarbon analysis, and absolute dating showed a date of about 14,000 years,” said Rahimi.

Excavations at an altitude of 3.98 thousand meters were carried out to find out what made the ancient man settle in such extreme conditions with sparse vegetation and temperature drops from minus 40 degrees in winter and plus 20 degrees in summer.