1. Human responses to environmental change on the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods
- Author
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Robin Bendrey, Suzanne A.G. Leroy, A Amini, Michael Gregg, A. Naderi Beni, Y Zha, Elena Marinova, H. Fazeli Nashli, Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe-Afrique (LAMPEA), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC), Brunel University London [Uxbridge], Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement (CEREGE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Collège de France (CdF)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Golestan University, St. Francis Xavier University (StFX), Department of Botany, Sofia University 'Sv. Kliment Ohridski', University of Edinburgh, Iranian National Institute for Oceanography, University of Tehran, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Sofia University 'St. Kliment Ohridski', and Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
- Subjects
010506 paleontology ,Archeology ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Environmental change ,Pleistocene ,Coastal plain ,Population ,palaeogeography ,[SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences ,01 natural sciences ,Middle East ,Pleistocene-Holocene transition ,Foothills ,Younger Dryas ,education ,neolithization ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Holocene ,Mesolithic ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Caspian Sea levels ,Global and Planetary Change ,education.field_of_study ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,vegetation dynamics ,Ecology ,Geology ,15. Life on land ,Palynology ,human response ,Geography ,Archaeology ,faunal and botanical evidence - Abstract
This paper presents results of a multidisciplinary research initiative examining human responses to environmental change at the intersection of the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea and the foothills of the Alborz Mountains during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Our palaeo-environmental analysis of two sedimentary cores obtained from a lagoon in close proximity to four caves, occupied by human groups during the transition from hunting and gathering to food-producing ways of life in this region, confirms Charles McBurney's 1968 hypothesis that when Caspian Sea levels were high, Mesolithic hunters were reliant on seal and deer, but as water levels receded and a wide coastal plain emerged, hunters consumed a different range of herbivorous mammalian species. Palynological evidence obtained from these two cores also demonstrates that the cool and dry climatic conditions often associated with the Younger Dryas stadial do not appear to have been extreme in this region. Thus, increasingly sedentary hunting and gathering groups could have drawn on plant and animal resources from multiple ecological niches without suffering significant resource stress or reduced population levels that may have been encountered in neighbouring regions. Our analyses of botanical, faunal and archaeological remains from a recently-discovered open-air Mesolithic and aceramic Neolithic site also shows an early process of Neolithization in the southern Caspian basin, which was a very gradual, low-cost adaptation to new ways of life, with neither the abandonment of hunting and gathering, nor a climatic trigger event for the emergence of a low-level, food-producing society.
- Published
- 2019