The Ustyurt Plateau, located in the Republic of Kazakhstan, represents an exceptional cultural landscape that bears witness to ancient hunting traditions and human adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. This UNESCO World Heritage nomination dossier presents the case for the inscription of the Ustyurt Landscapes and Aran Hunting Traps.
The nominated property encompasses a unique system of prehistoric hunting traps known as "arans" – monumental stone structures strategically placed across the plateau's dramatic landscape. These ancient constructions demonstrate remarkable engineering ingenuity and provide outstanding testimony to nomadic hunting cultures that flourished in Central Asia.
The dossier demonstrates how this cultural landscape meets UNESCO's criteria for Outstanding Universal Value through its representation of human creative genius, its exceptional testimony to cultural traditions, and its outstanding example of traditional land-use practices that have shaped the interaction between humans and the harsh plateau environment over millennia.