MONREPOS, Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Neuwied, Germany.
The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 4;16(2):e0245700. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245700. eCollection 2021.
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.
亚美尼亚高地拥有崎岖不平且环境多样的地貌，其特点是具有独特的生态小生境和大的温度梯度的镶嵌体。在地形梯度上，资源可用性的强烈季节性波动可能促使更新世人类群体通过调整其流动性策略来适应。然而，在晚更新世（中石器时代[MP]）期间，高地在狩猎采集者定居系统中所起的作用仍知之甚少。在海拔 1640 米处，亚美尼亚的 Kalavan 2 地点非常适合测试涉及海拔相关季节性流动性和生计策略的假设。在 Kalavan 2 的重新发掘暴露了三个主要的居住层，以及另外十个低密度的石器和动物群组合。这些结果为大约 60 到 45 千年前人类行为提供了一个新的年代学、地层学和古环境框架。所提出的证据表明，Kalavan 2 地点的分层居住是反复出现的短暂现象，很可能与在山地草原景观中的高海拔地区狩猎有关。
