Nor Geghi-1 and the Process of Late Middle Pleistocene Technological Evolution in the Armenia Highlands
Author(s): Boris Gasparyan; Keith Wilkinson; Ellery Frahm; Jennifer Sherriff; Daniel Adler
Year: 2023
Summary
This is an abstract from the "Pleistocene Landscapes and Hominin Behavior in the Armenian Highlands" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Current data from Africa and Eurasia suggest that the intercontinental transition from bifacial to hierarchical core technology occurred independently within different geographically dispersed hominin populations already adept at a variety of complex knapping procedures inherent to the Acheulean. The episodic appearance and disappearance of Levallois technology throughout Africa and Eurasia during the Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP) suggests that interregional technological homoplasy, based on a shared Acheulean ancestry, is the crucial factor underwriting the eventual transition to the Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic. If population expansion from Africa were the primary mechanism driving the appearance and spread of Levallois, then assemblages with strong operational links to the preceding Acheulean or a fluctuating spatiotemporal pattern of technological evolution would not be expected outside Africa. As one of the only LMP sites located in a known region of Plio-Pleistocene demographic expansion (Armenian Highlands), and associated with rich behavioral, paleoenvironmental, and chronometric archives, Nor Geghi-1 (NG-1) provides a rare opportunity to investigate technological continuity and change on an evolutionarily significant timescale and at spatiotemporal levels of detail previously unprecedented outside East Africa. Research at NG1 helps to clarify the relationship between the evolution of lithic technology, hominin behavioral variability, and demographic change.
Cite this Record
Nor Geghi-1 and the Process of Late Middle Pleistocene Technological Evolution in the Armenia Highlands. Boris Gasparyan, Keith Wilkinson, Ellery Frahm, Jennifer Sherriff, Daniel Adler. Presented at The 88th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2023 ( tDAR id: 473347)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Acheulian
•
Geoarchaeology
•
Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers
•
Late Middle Pleistocene
•
Levallois
•
Paleolithic
Geographic Keywords
Asia: Southwest Asia and Levant
Spatial Coverage
min long: 26.191; min lat: 12.211 ; max long: 73.477; max lat: 42.94 ;
Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 36890.0