Short-term Occupations at High Elevation During the Middle Paleolithic at Kalavan 2 (Republic of Armenia)

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2021 Feb 4

PMID 33539405

Authors

Ariel Malinsky-Buller

Philip Glauberman

Vincent Ollivier

Tobias Lauer

Rhys Timms

Ellery Frahm

Alexander Brittingham

Benno Triller

Lutz Kindler

Monika V Knul

Masha Krakovsky

Sebastian Joannin

Michael T Hren

Olivier Bellier

Alexander A Clark

Simon P E Blockley

Dimidry Arakelyan

Joao Marreiros

Eduardo Paixaco

Ivan Calandra

Robert Ghukasyan

David Nora

Nadav Nir

Ani Adigyozalyan

Hayk Haydosyan

Boris Gasparyan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The Armenian highlands encompasses rugged and environmentally diverse landscapes and is characterized by a mosaic of distinct ecological niches and large temperature gradients. Strong seasonal fluctuations in resource availability along topographic gradients likely prompted Pleistocene hominin groups to adapt by adjusting their mobility strategies. However, the role that elevated landscapes played in hunter-gatherer settlement systems during the Late Pleistocene (Middle Palaeolithic [MP]) remains poorly understood. At 1640 m above sea level, the MP site of Kalavan 2 (Armenia) is ideally positioned for testing hypotheses involving elevation-dependent seasonal mobility and subsistence strategies. Renewed excavations at Kalavan 2 exposed three main occupation horizons and ten additional low densities lithic and faunal assemblages. The results provide a new chronological, stratigraphical, and paleoenvironmental framework for hominin behaviors between ca. 60 to 45 ka. The evidence presented suggests that the stratified occupations at Kalavan 2 locale were repeated ephemerally most likely related to hunting in a high-elevation within the mountainous steppe landscape.

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