The technique of pressure knapping in Central Asia: Innovation or diffusion?

Abstract

This chapter deals with the emergence and the development of the pressure knapping technique in Central Asia (republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan). The specific context of the processes of neolithization is particularly significant for understanding the development of pressure blade technology in Central Asia as well as the reasons linked to its adoption and application in different cultural entities. The additional information provided here enriches this discussion for the neighboring regions of Russia, the Caucasus, Iran, and Afghanistan. The technological study of the major lithic assemblages recovered from Upper Paleolithic to Chalcolithic contexts across dispersed parts of Central Asia points out significant results. Thus, the emergence of the use of the pressure knapping technique during the Early Holocene in this part of Asia was associated with the appearance of microblade technology and, to some extent, bladelet production. The pressure technique appeared in Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups that contrast sharply with the previous Paleolithic stone reduction traditions. Two concepts have been identified: the first one, called here the Yubetsu method, is closely related to the technical tradition from the Far East (Sibero-Sino-Mongolia area), and the second one linked to a bullet-shaped core and the more classical method, is most often associated with geometrical microliths. With the appearance of agropastoral Neolithic societies like the Jeitun culture in Southern Turkmenistan (7th-6th millennia B.C.), the pressure knapping technique was used for the production of regular blades employing the bullet-shaped core method. A more interesting and specific case in Central Asia is found among three societies involved in the process of neolithization. The Kel'teminar culture (Uzbekistan, 7th-4th millennia B.C.) illustrates the beginning of the settlement process; the subsistence strategies were marked by a focus not only on hunting and gathering but also with the appearance of domestic cattle. Its technical tradition came mainly from the local Mesolithic background. The lithic industry has evidence of several production systems (microblades, bladelets, and blades) employing at least two techniques: a very well-controlled indirect percussion and the bullet-shaped core method using a pressure technique. The Atbasar culture (Kazakhstan, 5th-4th millennia B.C.) developed from the local Mesolithic, retaining microblade production using the pressure knapping technique (bullet-shaped cores). The introduction of few regular blades (detached by indirect percussion or pressure knapping technique?) and new formal tools can be observed. The Hissar culture (Tajikistan, 7th-4th millennia B.C.) shows the exploitation of both domestic and wild animals, with a higher proportion of the latter, suggesting a short-distance form of mobile pastoralism. The lithic assemblage presents the continuation of the earlier Mesolithic tradition (pressure microblade technology according to the Yubetsu method) together with the introduction of new Neolithic components such as a blade production using the indirect percussion. During the Chalcolithic/Eneolithic period, pressure knapping tends to disappear gradually from Central Asia. Following the emergence of the first Bronze Age communities, it is seen only in the shaping process of bifacial tools and projectile points.