Geography of Kazakhstan the water in Kazakhstan is polluted by industrial effluents, pesticide and fertilizer residue, and, in some places, radioactive elements. The most visible damage has been to the Aral Sea, which as recently as the 1970s was larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America save Lake Superior. The sea began to shrink rapidly when sharply increased irrigation and other demands on the only significant tributaries, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya (the latter reaching the Aral from neighboring Uzbekistan), all but eliminated inflow. During the Soviet Era, Kazakhstan received water from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Facies of the pile dwellings and of the dammed settlements Facies of the pile dwellings and of the dammed settlements The facies of pile dwellings and dammed settlements (Italian: "facies delle palafitte e degli abitati arginati") is a cultural aspect of the middle to late Bronze Age (c. 1600 to 1300 BC) that developed between eastern Lombardy, Trentino and western Veneto. It was followed in the final Bronze Age by the Proto-Villanovan culture and by the Luco culture. The continuity with the previous Polada culture of the ancient Bronze Age seems to be unbroken. The villages, as in the previous phase, are on stilts and are concentrated in the area