Life at the Crossroads: Prehistoric Occupation of the Lesser Caucasus

In order to deepen our understanding of human occupation history over the past 30,000 years of this dynamic region, we started the exploration of a number of human settlements and cave sites scattered in Armenia dating back from the Late Iron age all the way back to the Upper Palaeolithic.

Combining zooarchaeological, paleoproteomic and stable isotope approaches, we aim to reconstruct the faunal diversity and environment of the region, human subsistence dynamics, herd management in terms of mobility and seasonality, as well as adaptation to peculiar environmental settings. In particular, we aim to generate a mechanistic understanding of how local populations responded to changing climates (glacial interglacial cycles) and major socio-economic turnovers (establishment of producing lifeways, emergence of metallurgy, birth of states).