Early-Middle Acheulean Occupation of the Northern Transcaucasian Highland

In the northern part of the Transcaucasian Highland (Lori Depression, Armenia), three stratified sites dating to the Early-Middle Acheulean-Karakhach, Kurtan I, and Muradovo-have long been subject to archaeological studies. On the basis of absolute dates and paleomagnetic records relating to the first two sites, their age falls in the interval between the mid-Early and initial Middle Pleistocene. All three sites yielded a uniform industry with a peculiar toolset (various choppers, picks including chisel-ended ones, handaxes, large scrapers, macro-chisels, and macro-knives), manufactured mostly on natural tabular fragments of local volcanic rocks. Certain indicators of this industry, such as subrectangular and fan-shaped choppers, slab-like chisels, etc., are described. Information on 28 other localities with Acheulean artifacts, including 11 stratified ones, recently discovered in various parts of the Lori Depression and in adjacent areas of the Shirak Depression and the Debed River valley, is provided. It is demonstrated that the lithics from all these sites belong to the Karakhach tradition. Data are cited suggesting that three sites (Yagdan, Agvi-canyon, and Agvorik) are over 2 mln years old, and two more (Kurtan II and Dzhradzor) are at least 1.5 mln years old. It is concluded that people associated with the Karakhach Acheulean tradition had appeared in the northern Transcaucasian Highland similar to 2.0 Ma BP, then settled widely in this area, and remained there for several hundred thousand years. In my view, this may be explained by the very favorable environmental conditions of the region during the Early Pleistocene, and by the abundance of large rock fragments suitable for tool manufacture.