Cultural Diversity in the Zagros Mountains and the Expansion of Modern Humans into the Iranian Plateau

Summary

Located in western Eurasia, at the crossroads of human migrations out of Africa during the Pleistocene, the Iranian Plateau stands at the centre of models of anatomically modern human dispersals out of Africa. This paper aims to understand the cultural diversity among the first modern human populations in the area, and the implications of this diversity to evolutionary and ecological models of human dispersal through the Iranian Plateau, by re-examining four key UP lithic assemblages from the sites Warwasi, Yafteh and Pasangar of the west central and Ghār-e Boof Cave of the southern Zagros Mountains of Iran.

The results demonstrate that there is a significant degree of cultural diversity rather than homogeneity among the UP throughout the different Zagros habitat areas as a result of the relative geo-topographical isolation of the different areas occupied favouring different ecological adaptations. Based on the chronological and geographical patterns of Zagros UP variability, we propose a model of an initial phase of localised and patchy development of the early UP in the region, with limited subsequent contact among these first UP groups. This has important implications for the origins of biological diversity in the early phases of modern human colonisation of Eurasia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22046