Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
J Hum Evol. 2021 Feb;151:102908. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102908. Epub 2020 Dec 25.
The nature and timing of the shift from the Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) to the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) varied geographically, temporally, and substantively across the Near East and Eurasia; however, the result of this process was the archaeological disappearance of Middle Paleolithic technologies across the length and breadth of their geographic distribution. Ortvale Klde rockshelter (Republic of Georgia) contains the most detailed LMP-EUP archaeological sequence in the Caucasus, an environmentally and topographically diverse region situated between southwest Asia and Europe. Tephrochronological investigations at the site reveal volcanic ash (tephra) from various volcanic sources and provide a tephrostratigraphy for the site that will facilitate future correlations in the region. We correlate one of the cryptotephra layers to the large, caldera-forming Nemrut Formation eruption (30,000 years ago) from Nemrut volcano in Turkey. We integrate this tephrochronological constraint with new radiocarbon dates and published ages in an OxCal Bayesian age model to produce a revised chronology for the site. This model increases the ages for the end of the LMP (∼47.5-44.2 ka cal BP) and appearance of the EUP (∼46.7-43.6 ka cal BP) at Ortvale Klde, which are earlier than those currently reported for other sites in the Caucasus but similar to estimates for specific sites in southwest Asia and eastern Europe. These data, coupled with archaeological, stratigraphic, and taphonomic observations, suggest that at Ortvale Klde, (1) the appearance of EUP technologies of bone and stone has no technological roots in the preceding LMP, (2) a LMP population vacuum likely preceded the appearance of these EUP technologies, and (3) the systematic combination of tephra correlations and absolute dating chronologies promises to substantially improve our inter-regional understanding of this critical time interval of human evolution and the potential interconnectedness of hominins at different sites.
奥尔塔瓦勒克德洞穴（格鲁吉亚共和国）拥有外高加索地区最为详细的晚更新世至旧石器时代中期考古序列，这里环境和地形多样，位于西南亚和欧洲之间。对该遗址的火山灰（凝灰岩）年代学研究揭示了来自不同火山源的火山灰，并为该遗址建立了一套凝灰岩地层序列，这将有助于该地区未来的相关研究。我们将其中一层隐火山灰层与土耳其内姆鲁特火山的大型破火山口形成喷发（3 万年前）相关联。我们将这一年代学限制与新的放射性碳测年数据和已发表的年龄数据结合起来，在 OxCal 贝叶斯年代模型中进行整合，为该遗址建立了一个新的年代模型。这个模型增加了奥尔塔瓦勒克德洞穴遗址晚更新世结束（约 47.5-44.2 千年前）和旧石器时代中期结束（约 46.7-43.6 千年前）的年代，比目前在高加索地区其他遗址报告的年代更早，但与西南亚和东欧特定遗址的估计相似。这些数据，再加上考古学、地层学和埋藏学的观察结果，表明在奥尔塔瓦勒克德洞穴遗址，（1）旧石器时代中期技术的消失和旧石器时代晚期技术的出现没有技术根源，（2）旧石器时代晚期技术的出现可能先于旧石器时代中期技术的消失，（3）凝灰岩关联和绝对测年年代学的系统组合有望极大地提高我们对人类进化这一关键时间间隔的跨区域理解，以及不同遗址之间古人类的潜在相互联系。
