The Initial Upper Paleolithic and Its Place Within the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic Transition of Southwest Asia: What Hides Behind the Curtain of Taxonomies?

Goder‐Goldberger, Mae; Malinsky-Buller, Ariel

doi:10.1007/s41982-022-00112-0

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 162 publications

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“…Owing to the presence of bladelets, the percentage of punctiform/linear platforms is larger than the facetted/dihedral varieties (Supplementary Table S7). There are facetted/dihedral platforms in laminar removals (6 pieces, 10.17%, Supplementary Table S7), consistent with the earliest stages of the UP in southwest Asia (Meignen, 2012;Goder-Goldberger et al, 2022). In total, 19% of the laminar products (blade and bladelets) in Layer 4 are convergent, pointed, or in-between (Leder, 2014) in plan view morphology, while parallel-or subparallel-sided morphologies constitute 22.7% of the laminar artifacts.…”

Section: Layer 4 Stone Tool Assemblagementioning

confidence: 56%

Initial Upper Paleolithic in the Zagros Mountains

Shoaee,

Vahdati Nasab,

Storozum

et al. 2024

Front. Earth Sci.

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The Iranian Plateau and the Zagros Mountain chain, located at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia, occupy a critical geographical position in out-of-Africa scenarios, sitting astride a major dispersal corridor into southern and central Asia. Yet, the region’s role in human population expansions remains under-investigated. Here, we present findings from new excavations at Pebdeh Cave, a site located in the southern zone of the Zagros Mountains. Pebdeh contained a well-defined layer dating to ∼42–40,000 years ago (ka), with Levallois elements alongside laminar reduction. This transitional feature in the Zagros was not dated and recorded before, and, given its similarity to Western and Central Asian industries with respect to chronology and technological features, we define it here as the Zagros Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP). Although Late Middle Paleolithic and Early Upper Paleolithic technologies have been identified in the Zagros in the time period ranging between 50 and 40 ka, suggesting the presence of Neanderthals and modern humans in the mountainous region, the overall abrupt and constrained chronology of the IUP at Pebdeh, together with the penecontemporaneous appearance of other Upper Paleolithic sites in the Zagros Mountains, is compatible with a population expansion of Homo sapiens rather than an autochthonous development.

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Section: Layer 4 Stone Tool Assemblagementioning

confidence: 56%

Initial Upper Paleolithic in the Zagros Mountains

Shoaee,

Vahdati Nasab,

Storozum

et al. 2024

Front. Earth Sci.

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“…Other examples are the various divisions put forward for the Early Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian or between the Levantine Aurignacian and the so-called (Early) Ahmarian [cf. 204 , 205 ] as well as the many intensely debated ‘transitional’ or Initial Upper Palaeolithic industries [ 102 , 206 , 207 ]. Likewise, the mid-Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian is divided by some into a plethora of different units variously defined on the presence or absence of particular lithic elements [e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The epistemically problematic yet persistent nature of Palaeolithic cultural taxonomy has been pointed out on several occasions [13,[99][100][101][102] and arguably relates to the mostly implicit status of the generative principles that lead to a given taxonomic structure: how are key declarative terms such as 'culture' to be understood in relation to other taxonomic terms and in relation to underlying behavioural and demographic processes? Intended or not, much Palaeolithic cultural taxonomy is burdened with terminological baggage and latent semantic connotations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A quantitative analysis of Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy and evolution in Europe

Riede,

Matzig,

Biard

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Archaeological systematics, together with spatial and chronological information, are commonly used to infer cultural evolutionary dynamics in the past. For the study of the Palaeolithic, and particularly the European Final Palaeolithic and earliest Mesolithic, proposed changes in material culture are often interpreted as reflecting historical processes, migration, or cultural adaptation to climate change and resource availability. Yet, cultural taxonomic practice is known to be variable across research history and academic traditions, and few large-scale replicable analyses across such traditions have been undertaken. Drawing on recent developments in computational archaeology, we here present a data-driven assessment of the existing Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy in Europe. Our dataset consists of a large expert-sourced compendium of key sites, lithic toolkit composition, blade and bladelet production technology, as well as lithic armatures. The dataset comprises 16 regions and 86 individually named archaeological taxa (‘cultures’), covering the period between ca. 15,000 and 11,000 years ago (cal BP). Using these data, we use geometric morphometric and multivariate statistical techniques to explore to what extent the dynamics observed in different lithic data domains (toolkits, technologies, armature shapes) correspond to each other and to the culture-historical relations of taxonomic units implied by traditional naming practice. Our analyses support the widespread conception that some dimensions of material culture became more diverse towards the end of the Pleistocene and the very beginning of the Holocene. At the same time, cultural taxonomic unit coherence and efficacy appear variable, leading us to explore potential biases introduced by regional research traditions, inter-analyst variation, and the role of disjunct macroevolutionary processes. In discussing the implications of these findings for narratives of cultural change and diversification across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, we emphasize the increasing need for cooperative research and systematic archaeological analyses that reach across research traditions.

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“…Finally, hominin remains have not been unearthed at Ghar-e Boof so far. Nonetheless, there is a general agreement among archaeologists and paleoanthropologists regarding the association of early/initial UP sites in the Zagros exclusively with Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH)s 47 , 50 , 64 , 66 – 68 , though AMH skeletal remains are very rare in the region 69 – 71 . As for the MP, several sites also yielded Neanderthal or Neanderthal-like remains, such as Shanidar Cave 39 , 72 – 78 , Bisotun Cave 79 , Wezmeh Cave 80 and Bawa Yawan Rockshelter 81 .…”

Section: Geographical Archaeological and Chronological Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of diverse animal exploitation during the Middle Paleolithic at Ghar-e Boof (southern Zagros)

Mata-González,

Starkovich,

Zeidi

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Although Middle Paleolithic (MP) hominin diets consisted mainly of ungulates, increasing evidence demonstrates that hominins at least occasionally consumed tortoises, birds, leporids, fish, and carnivores. Until now, the MP zooarchaeological record in the Zagros Mountains has been almost exclusively restricted to ungulates. The narrow range of hominin prey may reflect socioeconomic decisions and/or environmental constraints, but could also result from a research bias favoring the study of large prey, since archaeologists have undertaken no systematic taphonomic analyses of small game or carnivores in the region. Here, we report on the first comprehensive taphonomic analysis of an MP faunal assemblage from Ghar-e Boof (∼ 81–45 kyr), a Late Pleistocene site in the southern Zagros of Iran. Anthropogenic bone surface modifications point to hominins as the main agent of accumulation. Hominins preyed primarily on ungulates, particularly wild goat. However, we also found evidence for MP hominin exploitation of carnivores and tortoises at the site. Although small game represents only a minor portion of the diet, our results suggest that the hunting behavior of MP hominins in the Zagros was more diverse than previously thought, similar to what we find elsewhere in Eurasia.

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The Initial Upper Paleolithic and Its Place Within the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic Transition of Southwest Asia: What Hides Behind the Curtain of Taxonomies?

Cited by 13 publications

References 162 publications

Initial Upper Paleolithic in the Zagros Mountains

Initial Upper Paleolithic in the Zagros Mountains

A quantitative analysis of Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy and evolution in Europe

Evidence of diverse animal exploitation during the Middle Paleolithic at Ghar-e Boof (southern Zagros)

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