The Alay site (Kyrgyzstan) as the evidence of the earliest human presence in the highlands of western Central Asia

According to the recent research, humans first started to occupy high mountain regions during the Final Pleistocene-Early Holocene. Thus, some of the earliest high altitude sites (4000 m above sea level) which were found in the Andes date back to ca. 10 ka BP, while the first habitation sites in Tibet are dated to ca. 13 ka BP. Western Central Asia also has several high mountainous regions, including the Pamir Mountains and the Alay Valley. In 2017, the joint Russian-Kyrgyz expedition investigated the Alay site located at 2800 m above sea level. The results suggest that the artifact assemblage from this site belongs to the circle of other Late Pleistocene bladelet industries found in the region. If this is the case, the Alay site represents some of the earliest evidence for human occupation of high-altitude landscapes in the Eurasian continent.