The study of the cultural materials associated with the Neanderthal physical remains from the sites in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberian Altai and adjacent areas documents two distinct ...techno-complexes of Micoquian and Mousterian. These findings potentially outline two dispersal routes for the Neanderthals out of Europe. Using data on topography and Palaeoclimate, we generated computer-based least-cost-path modelling for the Neanderthal dispersal routes from Caucasus towards the east. In this regard, two dispersal routes have been identified: A northern route from Greater Caucasus associated with Micoquian techno-complex towards Siberian Altai and a southern route from Lesser Caucasus associated with Mousterian towards Siberian Altai via the Southern Caspian Corridor. Based on archaeological, bio- and physio-geographical data, our model hypothesises that during climatic deterioration phases (e.g. MIS 4) the connection between Greater and Lesser Caucasus was limited. This issue perhaps resulted in the separate development and spread of two cultural groups of Micoquian and Mousterian with an input from two different population sources of Neanderthal influxes: eastern and southern Europe refugia for these two northern and southern dispersal routes respectively. Of these two, we focus on the southern dispersal route, for it comprises a 'rapid dispersal route' towards east. The significant location of the Southern Caspian corridor between high mountains of Alborz and the Caspian Sea, provided a special biogeographical zone and a refugium. This exceptional physio-geographic condition brings forward the Southern Caspian corridor as a potential place of admixture of different hominin species including Neanderthals and homo sapiens.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were distributed across a vast region from Europe to western and Central Asia. The Neanderthals' paleoecology and distribution has been extensively studied in ...Europe where the species originated. However, very little is known about their paleoecology in south-western Asia. Here, we employed species distribution modelling and 45 Middle Palaeolithic (c. 200,000-40,000 years BCE) sites location associated with fossil and/or lithic artefacts made by the Neanderthals to examine the expansion of the Neanderthals on the Iranian Plateau in south-western Asia. We estimated the niche overlap between Neanderthals and wild goat, wild sheep and Persian gazelle by modelling their past distribution using 200, 143 and 110 occurrence records respectively. The results show that Neanderthals had highest niche overlap with wild goat in the study area. This analysis revealed that the most suitable Neanderthals' habitats in south-western Asia were located in the Zagros Mountains stretches from north-western and western and some isolated patches in the central parts of the Iranian Plateau. The annual precipitation and maximum temperature of the warmest month were the most important predictor of the species' distribution. This finding shows that the southern edge of the Neanderthals distribution was limited by warm summer. Our results provide important information for future field investigations and excavations in the area.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Neanderthal extinction has been a matter of debate for many years. New discoveries, better chronologies and genomic evidence have done much to clarify some of the issues. This evidence suggests that ...Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000-37,000 years before present (BP), after a period of coexistence with Homo sapiens of several millennia, involving biological and cultural interactions between the two groups. However, the bulk of this evidence relates to Western Eurasia, and recent work in Central Asia and Siberia has shown that there is considerable local variation. Southwestern Asia, despite having a number of significant Neanderthal remains, has not played a major part in the debate over extinction. Here we report a Neanderthal deciduous canine from the site of Bawa Yawan in the West-Central Zagros Mountains of Iran. The tooth is associated with Zagros Mousterian lithics, and its context is preliminary dated to between ~43,600 and ~41,500 years ago.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Complex social organisation, technological skills and specialised foraging strategies are considered as modernity indicators in the history of Homo sapiens' evolution. However, the timing and nature ...of these abilities are poorly understood. Research on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic faunal remains and settlement patterns in the Zagros Mountains of Iran proposed the model of 'game management' for hunter-gatherer societies, reflecting their advanced cultural development affected by their environmantal contxt in this part of the world. Using various methods, including ecological landscape structure analysis, site location and archaeological remains, this paper reveals that the Late Pleistocene's hunters had a considerable focus on strategic corridors. We argue this behaviour improved the hunters game management tactic among the Upper Palaeolithic population in the Dasht-e Rostam area of the Southern Zagros Mountains. We demonstrate how the environmental adaptability accelerated Homo sapiens' modernity around 40 kyr ago. Although this proficiency resulted in increasing meat supply, it required a high level of intra-group communication and fitness, seasonal adaptations and specific technologies to compete with other predators using the same strategy in the Southern Zagros.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artifacts of the Zagros Mountains are relatively better understood than those in other parts of the Iranian Plateau. However, settlement systems, land use and ...Palaeolithic population dynamics for this region have received less attention. Here we present research on the study of human behavior that contributes to a better understanding of the early human colonization of Eurasia. Specifically, we focus on the Kermanshah region of the west-central Zagros to evaluate hominin dispersal and adaptation by investigating hominin settlement patterns and behavioral responses to the new and diverse environments and topography of this part of the Zagros region. Our survey in Kermanshah documented over 260 new Palaeolithic localities, enabled us to draw Middle and Upper Palaeolithic site distribution patterns and population dynamics which reveal that this part of the Zagros was intensively populated in both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. This research demonstrates that the Zagros in general, and the Kermanshah area in particular, were by no means impassable but include intermountain plains connected to each other by valleys associated with permanent water and raw material sources. Middle Palaeolithic settlements are most abundant in areas with high topographic contrast that contain high mountains, flat plains, and diverse resources. Eventually, the Zagros was one of a handful of important interglacial refugia in south-western Asia for hominins during the Upper Pleistocene and may have served as a core area from which colonizations and recolonizations of Eurasia occurred during multiple dispersals.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
•It is widely accepted that only single Upper Palaeolithic (UP) cultural tradition; Baradostian, developed in the Zagros.•Recent excavation in southern Zagros introduced Rostamian cultural group to ...the UP of the Iranian Plateau.•The Rostamian along with the Baradostian demonstrates the diversity among the Iranian UP.•This diversity hypothesizes mosaic development and spread of modern human populations throughout the Iranian Plateau.
The Upper Palaeolithic (UP) record of the Zagros Mountains is of critical importance for our understanding of the dispersal of modern humans into Southwest Asia. Most researchers interpret the record as reflecting the existence of two developmentally related cultural groups, the Baradostian of the early UP and the Zarzian of the late UP or Epipalaeolithic. In this paper we analyse techno-typological characteristics of early UP assemblages from the Zagros to assess the degree of variability. We use here new chronometric and typo-technological data from the early UP assemblages of the cave site Ghār-e Boof in the north western Fars province of Iran and compare these data with key sites of the Zagros UP, including Shanidar, Warwasi and Yafteh. Our study reveals important technological differences between assemblages from these sites, which led us to argue that the UP record of the Zagros Mountain range reflects multiple technological traditions instead of a single one. We further argue that a model reflecting a mosaic pattern for the evolution of the early UP in the Zagros Mountains fits better with the increasing evidence for a chronologically deep and spatially complex process of the spread of modern human populations over Southwest Asia.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
This paper aims to understand the cultural diversity among the first modern human populations in the Iranian Zagros and the implications of this diversity for evolutionary and ecological models of ...human dispersal through Eurasia. We use quantitative data and technotypological attributes combined with physiogeographic information to assess if the Zagros Upper Paleolithic (UP) developed locally from the Middle Paleolithic (MP), as well as to contextualize the variation in lithics from four UP sites of Warwasi, Yafteh, Pasangar, and Ghār-e Boof. Our results demonstrate (1) that the Zagros UP industries are intrusive to the region, and (2) that there is significant cultural diversity in the early UP across different Zagros habitat areas, and that this diversity clusters in at least three groups. We interpret this variation as parallel developments after the initial occupation of the region shaped by the relative geotopographical isolation of different areas of the Zagros, which would have favored different ecological adaptations. The greater similarity of lithic traditions and modes of production observed in the later phases of the UP across all sites indicates a marked increase in inter-group contact throughout the West-Central Zagros mountain chain. Based on the chronological and geographical patterns of Zagros UP variability, we propose a model of an initial colonization phase leading to the emergence of distinct local traditions, followed by a long phase of limited contact among these first UP groups. This has important implications for the origins of biological and cultural diversity in the early phases of modern human colonization of Eurasia. We suggest that the mountainous arc that extends from Anatolia to the Southern Zagros preserves the archaeological record of different population trajectories. Among them, by 40 ka, some would have been transient, whereas others would have left no living descendants. However, some would have led to longer term local traditions, including groups who share ancestry with modern Europeans and modern East/Southeast Asians.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
ABSTRACT
The extinction of Neanderthal populations has been attributed to the onset of cold and dry climatic conditions during Marine Isotope Stage 3 or their competition with anatomically modern ...humans for large game resources. However, decoupling climate from competition has long proved difficult. Loess sequences and pollen cores provide regional‐scale environmental information but are less well‐suited to providing local‐scale habitat information contemporaneous with hominin habitation of occupation sites. The relationship between climate and resource availability is particularly unknown in the Zagros mountain range where archaeological evidence for both Neanderthals and
Homo sapiens
occupation is documented. Here, we analyse carbon (δ
13
C) and oxygen (δ
18
O) stable isotopes measured from herbivore tooth enamel carbonates recovered from the Neanderthal and modern human occupation sites of Bawa Yawan Rockshelter and Shanidar Cave to trace local‐scale floral biome dynamics and climate conditions that influence the distribution and availability of large prey targeted by both hominin species. Shared isotopic composition of herbivorous fauna, largely represented by wild goats, from both sites spanning Neanderthal and
Homo sapiens
occupation indicate both hominin species exploited similar habitats during climatically similar phases.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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