Human occupations at the Alpysbaev Cave (western Tian Shan): Bioarchaeological insights from the Iron Age burial cluster

For millennia, southern Kazakhstan has been at the center of population movements and cultural exchange, hosting numerous tribal unions and confederations. The social structures of the societies that formed these early states have been the subject of extensive research, interpreted primarily from burial structures and funerary rites. In a landscape dominated by kurgans, catacombs, and necropoles, little is known about the disposal of the dead in natural shelters like caves. In this paper, we present the initial results of the newly excavated site of Alpysbaev Cave located in Turkestan Province, southern Kazakhstan. Test excavations yielded several pits intersecting one another and containing disturbed human remains (MNI = 5) as well as ceramic sherds, lithics, and by-products of combustion features. The lowermost lithostratigraphic unit contained human cranial fragments and faunal remains. Integrated bioarchaeological and genetic studies reveal, respectively, signs of sustained injuries and the detection of oral pathogens in the analysed teeth. Radiocarbon dating and the preliminary analysis of archaeological finds suggest at least three occupation phases spanning from the early medieval and Iron Age to the early Neolithic periods.