Palaeoenvironmental Background for the Early Paleolithic Occupation of the Volcanic Upland in the South Caucasus

Abstract

Nowadays, it has been reliably established that the Early Paleolithic people producing both Oldowan and Early Acheulian industries initially occupied the volcanic upland of the South Caucasus not later than 1.9.1.85Myr (Olduvai subchron). This period was characterized by a much lower relief than at present and subtropic climate that favored a dispersal of the early humans. The volcanic activity created there fertile paleosols with grass covers feeding hunted herbivores as well as rocks suitable for manufacturing lithic artifacts. In the subsequent periods of the Early and the Middle Pleistocene the upland underwent uplifting that led to a gradual deterioration of climate and appearance of glacial-interglacial rhythms with an increasingly pronounced difference between warm and cold periods. However, the chronological ranges of the studied Acheulian sites suggest that the humans continued to occupy the region under both more and less favorable conditions. The early humans are believed to have spread most widely in the region in the Late Acheulian, supposedly during in the Holstein interglacial.