CAUCUS: Early human dispersal into Eurasia via the southern Caucasus?

Beskrivning

The southern Caucasus, located north of the Levantine corridor, hosts a suite of extraordinary Paleolithic sites with numerous stone tools and skeletal remains. This has fueled the hypothesis that early humans used the southern Caucasus as a refuge and launching pad for expansions into Europe and Central Asia over the last two million years.

However, this hypothesis remains untested due to lack of data, and it is therefore unknown i) when the area was occupied, ii) how population levels fluctuated over time, and iii) if dispersals were driven by environmental change. In this project, we will build upon the scientific platform that we have developed within the interdisciplinary NordForsk project entitled “The timing and ecology of the human occupation of Central Asia” (THOCA).

We will use this platform to test the hypothesis that the southern Caucasus played a key role for early human evolution and dispersal. We will thus use the methodological advances achieved within THOCA to study i) when the southern Caucasus was occupied by early humans, ii) how the population density levels fluctuated over time, and iii) if the dispersal patterns were linked to changes in the environment. Through comparisons with the results obtained for Central Asia within THOCA, we will potentially be able map linkages between the presence of early humans in the southern Caucasus and Central Asia.