Late Pleistocene hominin population dynamics in the Armenian Highlands: chronology, paleoenvironment, and behavior

Objective

CHRONOPOP will elucidate regional Late Pleistocene hominin population dynamics and the disappearance of Neanderthals. It will do so by establishing the chronology and environmental context of the late Middle Paleolithic (MP) in the Armenian Highlands. The project will also document the behavioral adaptations that likely supported late persistence of the MP and potentially Neanderthals in this region. A glacial refugium at the nexus of the Near East and Eurasia, with a rich, yet understudied MP record, the Armenian Highlands is a prime location to study Late Pleistocene hominin behavior and population dynamics. However, the hominin authorship of the MP in the Armenian Highlands is unknown. Current archaeological data suggest that the MP persists very late in the region and overlaps for thousands of years with the earliest appearance of the Upper Paleolithic, commonly associated with H. sapiens. The end of the MP was far more complicated and regionally variable than previously thought. It is therefore crucial to refine the regional chronology and environmental context of MP occupation. This project implements cutting-edge methods of survey, excavation, geochronology, analysis of ancient DNA, artifacts and faunal remains, paleoenvironmental research at MP sites with overlapping age ranges in two distinct biomes, and pioneering speleothem hydroclimate research. Resulting data and synthesis will test hypotheses on the chronology and environmental context of MP occupations, and hominin technological organization, land use, mobility, and subsistence. The results will revise our understanding of the regionally variable dynamics of Neanderthal demise and replacement by H. sapiens. CHRONOPOP will use high-performance computing to analyze geochronological, genetic, hominin fossil, archaeological, geomorphological, and paleoenvironmental ‘big data’ to generate regional and continental scale models of Late Pleistocene hominin population dynamics and their environmental context.