%0 Journal Article
%A Fernández Jalvo, Yolanda
%A King, Tania
%A Andrews, Peter
%A Yepiskoposyan, Levon
%A Moloney, Norah
%A Murray, John
%A Domínguez Alonso, Patricio
%A Asryan, Lena
%A Ditchfield, Peter
%A Made, J. van der
%A Torres, Trinidad
%A Sevilla, Paloma
%A Nieto Díaz, Manuel
%A Cáceres Cuello de Oro, Isabel
%A Allué, Ethel
%A Marín Monfort, M.D.
%A Sanz Martín, Teresa
%T The Azokh Cave complex: Middle Pleistocene to Holocene human occupationin the Caucasus
%D 2010
%@ 0047-2484
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42058
%X Azokh Cave is located near the village of the same name in theNagorno-Karabagh region of the south-eastern part of the LesserCaucasus (3937.09’ N and 4659.19’ E, 962 metres –a.s.l.). AzokhCave and other relevant Acheulian sites in the Caucasus (Fig. 1)were described by Lioubine (2002). Together with Mousterian sites(Klein, 1969, 1999; Hoffecker and Cleghorn, 2000; Hoffecker, 2002;Stringer and Andrews, 2005) and sites producing evidence of theMiddle-Late Palaeolithic transition (Joris and Adler 2008), theCaucasus region has provided evidence of continuous humansettlement of the area throughout the Pleistocene. The geographicallocation of these sites indicates the persistence of a naturalcorridor that Lioubine (2002) named the ‘Caucasus isthmus’ andwhich we describe as the Trans-Caucasian corridor.Based on a geological survey of Quaternary deposits in collaborationwith the Armenian Academy of Sciences (Ferna´ndez-Jalvoet al., 2004; King et al., 2003), we observe that the topography of thearea has changed considerably due to tectonic compression andperiglacial isostasy. This is in agreement with estimations by GPSstudies (Mosar, 2006, Mosar et al., 2007) and ESR (Gru¨n et al., 1999)that establishedan uplift rate of12 to14 mm/year or 0.8–1.0 cm/year,respectively. The corridor has changed greatly since the middlePleistocene, with uplift and erosion altering the landscape, but it islikely that passage through the Caucasian mountains has alwaysbeen possible. The Trans-Caucasian corridor and other routes viaTurkey and towards Asia (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, 2001) weremigration pathways during the Pleistocene.Fossil humans in the Caucasian area are scarce. The site ofDmanisi in Georgia yielded the earliest known Eurasian hominins(1.7 Ma, Gabunia et al., 2000; Rightmire et al., 2006; Martino´ n-Torres et al., 2008). Late surviving Neanderthals are present atseveral sites: Mezmaiskaya Cave, in the Northern Caucasus of Russia(30 ka, Skinner et al., 2005), provided remains of late survivingNeanderthals; a mandible of a 2–3 year old Neanderthal child wasfound at Barakay Cave (North Caucasus; Lubin et al., 2002). Twoincisor fragments and one premolar from Kudaro I may be human(Lioubine, 2002). In this context, Azokh Cave fills an importanttemporal gap. Azokh Cave contains a nearly continuous stratigraphicsection from >300 ka to the present, and mandible fragments ofHomo heidelbergensis found at the site (Kasimova, 2001) representthe easternmost extent of this species. Here we review the finds ofthis long forgotten site and present results of our recent work.
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