Palaeoecological reconstructions of the Middle to Late Pleistocene occupations in the Southern Caucasus using rodent assemblages

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2022) 14: 96 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-022-01555-w ORIGINAL PAPER Palaeoecological reconstructions of the Middle to Late Pleistocene occupations in the Southern Caucasus using rodent assemblages Iván Rey‑Rodríguez1,2,3,4 · Juan Manuel López‑García1,2 · Emmanuelle Stoetzel3 Julie Arnaud3,4 · Simon Parfitt6 · Yolanda Fernández‑Jalvo7 · Tania King8 · Christiane Denys5 · Received: 31 January 2022 / Accepted: 1 April 2022 / Published online: 2 May 2022 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract Located at the crossroads between Africa, Europe and Asia, the Southern Caucasus is a prime location to study occupations by H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis and anatomically modern humans. Azokh Cave is an important site for the understanding of human evolution in its archaeological, palaeontological, environmental and ecological context. The main objective of this work is to use rodents to infer the climatic and environmental conditions that prevailed during the formation of the site. The small-mammal remains come from the archaeological excavation campaigns carried out in Azokh 1 in 2003, 2005, 2014, 2015 and 2018; they are from Unit V, Units III–IV and Unit II. The small-mammal assemblage is composed of at least 13 taxa: seven arvicoline, two cricetine, two gerbilline, one dipodid and one murine species. Units III–IV do not yield enough material to draw palaeoclimatic inferences. The palaeoclimatic conditions for Units V and II, ascertained by means of the bioclimatic model, suggest temperatures and precipitation similar to nowadays; the climate seems to be relatively warmtemperate in both units. The palaeoenvironmental reconstruction by means of habitat weighting points to an environment mainly composed of desert and steppe habitats, as well as portions of grassland and forest. This interpretation differs from that inferred from the large-mammal and archaeobotanical data, which indicate a woodland environment. These differences could be explained by the origin of the accumulation. There was no evidence of a major palaeoenvironmental or palaeoclimatic change between the Middle and Late Pleistocene layers, indicating favourable conditions throughout the study period. Keywords Rodentia · Taxonomy · Taphonomy · Palaeoenvironment · Palaeoclimate 2 Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain 3 HNHP UMR 7194, CNRS/Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UPVD/Sorbonne Universités, Musée de l′Homme, Palais de Chaillot, 17 place du Trocadéro, 75016 Paris, France 4 Sezione Di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Dipartimento Di Studi Umanistici, Università Degli Studi Di Ferrara, C.so Ercole I d’Este, 32 ‑ 44121 Ferrara, Italy 5 ISYEB UMR 7205, CNRS/Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle/UPMC, EPHE/Sorbonne Universités, CP51, 57 Rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France Yolanda Fernández‑Jalvo 6 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK Tania King 7 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain 8 Blandford Town Museum, Bere’s Yard, Blandford, Dorset DT11 7AZ, UK * Iván Rey‑Rodríguez ; Juan Manuel López‑García Emmanuelle Stoetzel Christiane Denys Julie Arnaud Simon Parfitt 1 Departament d’Història i Història de l’Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain 13 Vol.:(0123456789) 96 Page 2 of 25 Introduction The area of Western Asia plays an important role in efforts to understand the biological history of human lineages and their techno-cultural complexes during the Pleistocene, as well as large- and small-mammal migrations (Agustí and Lordkipanidze 2019; Bermúdez de Castro and MartinónTorres 2013; Belmaker et al. 2016). Western Asia was a natural corridor and refuge between Africa and Eurasia during the Pleistocene. The work of Abbate and Sagri (2012) indicates that hominin dispersals occurred during favourable climatic periods, and this area was very attractive for humans. This is evidenced by the high number of sites located in this region, such as Dmanisi (Lordkipanidze et al. 2013; Coil et al. 2020), Qesem Cave (Maul et al. 2016), Misliya Cave (Hershkovitz et al. 2018; Weissbrod and Weinstein-Evron 2020), Nesher Ramla (Hershkovitz et al. 2021), Agithu-3 (Kandel et al. 2017) and Dzudzuana Cave (Belmaker et al. 2016). Studies of small vertebrates from archaeological sites in this region have been on the increase in the last decade (Belmaker and Hovers 2011; Demirel et al. 2011; Weissbrod and Zaidner 2014; Maul et al. 2015, 2016, 2020; Smith et al. 2015; Belmaker et al. 2016; Parfitt 2016; Kandel et al. 2017; Weissbrod and Weinstein-Evron 2020; Rey-Rodríguez et al. 2020; Tilby et al. 2022). Here we analyse the Azokh 1 site, which is one of the most complete and, to date, one of the oldest archaeological sites found in the Southern Caucasus. The main objective of our work is to use rodents to infer the climatic and environmental conditions that prevailed during the formation of the site. We compare our results with previous studies carried out in Azokh 1 Cave, as well as other sites in the region where rodents have been analysed, in order to obtain a framework in which to discuss the palaeoecological conditions where humans pursued their activities in the Southern Caucasus. Azokh Cave system Azokh Cave takes its name from the village situated nearby. The site is also known as Azykh Cave. It is located in the Ishkhanaget river valley, Southern Caucasus (39° 37′ 15″ N; 46° 59′ 32″ E) (Asryan et al. 2020). It is an important site for the understanding of human evolution in its archaeological, palaeontological, environmental and ecological context (Fernández-Jalvo et al. 2016b). The cave is developed in thickly bedded Mesozoic carbonates. This system comprises a succession of sub-rounded chambers oriented NNW to SSE and 13 Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2022) 14: 96 interconnected for almost 130 m. Several entrance passageways connect the inner parts of the cave to the exterior, but geo-archaeological sediments have only been found in Azokh 1, Azokh 2 and Azokh 5 (Fig. 1). Our research focused on Azokh 1, because this is the only entrance found to date filled with Pleistocene-Holocene sediments (Murray et al. 2016). Azokh 1 Azokh 1 is a broadly linear chamber 40 m long and 11.5 m high, with a WSW-ENE alignment. The cave has provided evidence of occupation by hominins from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene, and is the only well-stratified and dated sequence from this period in the region (Asryan 2015). It was discovered by M. Huseinov (also named Guseinov by other authors) at the end of the 1950s, and the first excavation started in the 1960s. Excavations of Azokh 1 were carried out from the 1960s to the 1980s, yielding abundant archaeological remains (Guseinov 2010). (...truncated)