Researchers from the Faculty of Biology and the Faculty of Archeology of the University of Warsaw (UW) and the Institute of Archeology of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences participated in a scientific expedition to the south-eastern part of the Kyzyl-kum desert in Uzbekistan. They conducted a pilot study there to verify the existence of a large water reservoir, which was probably the main source of freshwater from 6,000 up to 4,000 years BC.

The research concerned the changes in the palaeoenvironment at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene in the Turan Plain in Central Asia. Scientists tested the hypothesis whether between 6,000 and 4 thousand years BC in the Kyzyl-kum desert there was a large water reservoir, which was probably the main source of freshwater for the pastoral and sedentary peoples living there.

Initial fieldworks of the area and archaeological data from the Neolithic Keltaminar culture site indicate that the turning points in the development of this community were related to climate change, leading to changes in the extent of a large body of water. Its contemporary remnants include Ayakagytma Lake, located in the immediate vicinity of the researched site – said Prof. Karol Szymczak from the Faculty of Archeology of the University of Warsaw.