Comment penser la néolithisation en Asie centrale (X e -IV e millénaires) ? L'émergence de nouveaux modèles de sociétés entre sédentaires et nomades

International audienceIn this paper we examine the original processes of neolithisation in Central Asia (Xth-IVth millennia BC) that represent alternative models to those identified in Asia, particularly in Near and Middle East. It underlines, in the view of a cognitive reflection, the existence of a mental transformation in Central Asia since the Upper Palaeolithic, process that leads to the Neolithic then Bronze period, in which reading keys are distinguished although the Central Asian context of the Neolithic, apparently without symbolic expressions, seems not to fit. The understanding of the factors and reasons leading to this change, examining the different components of the Neolithic society, anda better definition, even the identification, of Chale olithic in this area are a fundamental challenge. Thus, it is a conceptualisation of néolithisation in Central Asia, in association with schemes of societies beyond just a dichotomy nomad/sedentary, that is proposed. A critical summary of datas, taking into account unpublished results from recent research, especially in Uzbekistan leads to examine mechanisms of emergence of the Neolithics in this territory — not the Neolithic—, distinguish local centres of néolithisation and characterize the new merging societies (Jeitun/Anau/Namazga ; Kel'teminar ; Atbasar/Botai ; Hissar) that develop a specific cultural identity. These societies are established in a new cultural geography of central Asia, crossed by a complex relationship network, which appeared in the Late Pleistocene and early Upper Holocene, period when we see major changes, or even a breaking, characterized by the appearance on all the territory ofmicroblade and blade assemblages connected to indirect percussion and especially to pressure technique