Late Pleistocene hominin settlement patterns and population dynamics in the Zagros Mountains: Kermanshah region

The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artifacts of the Zagros Mountains are relatively better understood than those in other parts of the Iranian Plateau. However, settlement systems, land use and Palaeolithic population dynamics for this region have received less attention. Here we present research on the study of human behavior that contributes to a better understanding of the early human colonization of Eurasia. Specifically, we focus on the Kermanshah region of the west-central Zagros to evaluate hominin dispersal and adaptation by investigating hominin settlement patterns and behavioral responses to the new and diverse environments and topography of this part of the Zagros region. Our survey in Kermanshah documented over 260 new Palaeolithic localities, enabled us to draw Middle and Upper Palaeolithic site distribution patterns and population dynamics which reveal that this part of the Zagros was intensively populated in both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. This research demonstrates that the Zagros in general, and the Kermanshah area in particular, were by no means impassable but include intermountain plains connected to each other by valleys associated with permanent water and raw material sources. Middle Palaeolithic settlements are most abundant in areas with high topographic contrast that contain high mountains, flat plains, and diverse resources. Eventually, the Zagros was one of a handful of important interglacial refugia in south-western Asia for hominins during the Upper Pleistocene and may have served as a core area from which colonizations and recolonizations of Eurasia occurred during multiple dispersals.