Zooarchaeological Investigation of Late Pleistocene Subsistence Adaptations in Iran

Summary

Economic decisions of Late Pleistocene foragers bore heavily on the nature, timing, and intensity of the adoption of agriculture in different parts of Eurasia. Decades of intensive research in the Levant and Anatolia have made significant contributions to our understanding of Late Pleistocene economic strategies in the western parts of the Near East. A recent surge of interest by Iranian researchers and internationally collaborative teams in Paleolithic archaeology of Iran has renewed attention on the more eastern parts of Near East. This has significant implications for Late Pleistocene research in other parts of the region, and warrants an in-depth examination of the current state of knowledge in Iran. Here, we synthesize the existing faunal record from Late Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic deposits and sites from environmentally diverse habitats—Northern, Central, and Southern Zagros Mountains, Caspian littoral, and the Iranian Plateau. The faunal record is a sensitive indicator of the effect of climatic and ecological factors on subsistence adaptations. We combine our observations with other archaeological lines of evidence to provide a more holistic reconstruction of forager economic strategies during the pivotal time period between the Last Glacial Maximum and the beginning of the Neolithic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15114