Elham Ghasidian

Stiftung Neanderthal Museum

The Late Pleistocene of southwestern Asia witnessed hominin diversification, admixture, and adaptation to new environments. The Iranian Plateau in southwestern Asia lies at the crossroads between Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and the Far East, and therefore, has contributed substantially to the history of hominin migration. On the Iranian Plateau,...

While the interbreeding of Homo neanderthalensis (hereafter Neanderthal) and Anatomically modern human (AMH) has been proven, owing to the shortage of fossils and absence of appropriate DNA, the timing and geography of their interbreeding are not clearly known. In this study, we applied ecological niche modelling (maximum entropy approach) and GIS...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281978.].

Whilst the admixture of the Neanderthal and anatomically modern human is precisely proven, due to the shortage of fossils and absence of appropriate DNA, the timing and geography of it, are the subjects of questions. In this study, we applied ecological niche modelling (maximum entropy approach) and GIS to reconstruct Neanderthal and modern human p...

The extinction of Neanderthal populations has been attributed to the onset of cold and dry climatic conditions during Marine Isotope Stage 3 or their competition with anatomically modern humans for large game resources. However, decoupling climate from competition has long proved difficult. Loess sequences and pollen cores provide regional-scale en...

The long-term presence of Neanderthals in western Eurasia suggests that they were a resilient hominin subspecies. Archaeological records and fossil evidence shows that towards their extinction, their territory was dramatically limited for various reasons including restricted food resources. Recent excavations at the Bawa Yawan rockshelter have obta...

The long-term presence of Neanderthals in western Eurasia suggests that they were a resilient hominin subspecies. Archaeological records and fossil evidence shows that towards their extinction, their territory was dramatically limited for various reasons including restricted food resources. Recent excavations at the Bawa Yawan rockshelter have obt...

The study of the cultural materials associated with the Neanderthal physical remains from the sites in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberian Altai and adjacent areas documents two distinct techno-complexes of Micoquian and Mousterian. These findings potentially outline two dispersal routes for the Neanderthals out of Europe. Using data on topogra...

The study of the cultural materials associated with the Neanderthal physical remains from the sites in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberian Altai and adjacent areas documents two distinct techno-complexes of Micoquian and Mousterian. These findings potentially outline two dispersal routes for the Neanderthals out of Europe. Using data on topogra...

Complex social organisation, technological skills and specialised foraging strategies are considered as modernity indicators in the history of Homo sapiens' evolution. However, the timing and nature of these abilities are poorly understood. Research on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic faunal remains and settlement patterns in the Zagros Mountains...

Recent research on the phylogeny of Neanderthals recognises a division within Neanderthal groups around 150ka suggesting a population turnover is likely to have occurred in the Caucasus. For instance, Neanderthal remains dated ca. 100ka associated with fully fledged Levallois lithic industry were con-firmed in the Azokh 1 Cave, at the Lesser Caucas...

Neanderthal extinction has been a matter of debate for many years. New discoveries, better chronologies and genomic evidence have done much to clarify some of the issues. This evidence suggests that Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000-37,000 years before present (BP), after a period of coexistence with Homo sapiens of several millennia, invol...

Neanderthal extinction has been a matter of debate for many years. New discoveries, better chronologies and genomic evidence have done much to clarify some of the issues. This evidence suggests that Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000–37,000 years before present (BP), after a period of coexistence with Homo sapiens of several millennia, invol...

The timing and dispersal routes of Homo sapiens (H. sapiens) into the Iranian Plateau have always been a matter of debate in the recent years. Current studies on the Upper Palaeolithic period of the Zagros mountains demonstrated the later colonisation of West-Central Zagros by H. sapiens based on techno-typological and radiocarbon dating. The Kerma...

Most of our knowledge on the Palaeolithic of the Iranian Plateau derives from a scientific focus on the Zagros Mountains. In recent years, several Palaeolithic research projects have been conducted in different parts of Iran, including southern piedmonts of the Alborz Mountains and the Iranian Central Plateau. Here, we present a Palaeolithic occupa...

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were distributed across a vast region from Europe to western and Central Asia. The Neanderthals’ paleoecology and distribution has been extensively studied in Europe where the species originated. However, very little is known about their paleoecology in south-western Asia. Here, we employed species distribution...

این نوشتار به گوناگونی فرهنگی در میان نخستین جوامع انسان هوموساپینس )هوشمند( در کوهستان زاگرس و جایگاه این گوناگونی در تطور و پراکنش این جوامع در اوراسیا می پردازد. این پژوهش با مطالعۀ فناوری و گون هشناسی دس تافزارهای سنگی برجای مانده از این جوامع و تحلیل آماری داد ههای آن ها دو هدف را دنبال م ینماید: نخست پاسخ به این پرسش که آیا پارین هسنگی نوین ز...

This paper aims to understand the cultural diversity among the first modern human populations in the Iranian Zagros and the implications of this diversity for evolutionary and ecological models of human dispersal through Eurasia. We use quantitative data and technotypological attributes combined with physiogeographic information to assess if the Za...

The Upper Paleolithic (UP) assemblages from the Zagros Mountain range were traditionally assigned to the Baradostian cultural group based on the original definition from Layer C at Shanidar Cave. New chronological information from three UP core areas of the Zagros—the Northern, West-Central and Southern Zagros—points to the roughly simultaneous app...

گزارش های شانزدهمین گردهمایی سالانۀ باستان شناسی ایران

It is believed that there is a strong link between raw material exploitation and lithic technology. The raw materials play an important role in imposing special technology to hunter gatherers for adapting themselves to their environment. The Zagros region with complex topography, as an island of moisture and the rainfall, provided sufficient food,...

It is believed that there is a strong link between raw material exploitation and lithic technology. The raw materials play an important role in imposing special technology to hunter gatherers for adapting themselves to their environment. The Zagros region with complex topography, as an island of moisture and the rainfall, provided sufficient food,...

The Upper Palaeolithic (UP) record of the Zagros Mountains is of critical importance for our understanding of the dispersal of modern humans into Southwest Asia. Most researchers interpret the record as reflecting the existence of two developmentally related cultural groups, the Baradostian of the early UP and the Zarzian of the late UP or Epipalae...

In recent decades, the Eurasian Middle–Upper Palaeolithic (M–UP) transition has been a topic of major interest among palaeoanthropologists. Great progress has been made in several domains, particularly palaeogenetics, which have revealed the complex ancestry of early Eurasians. This progress—including the identification of a ghost lineage of Eurasi...

It is accepted that the anatomically modern human (AMH) have first left Africa 80-120 kya based on skeletal remains at Skhul, Tabun, Qafzeh and Manot Caves in the Levant, where they replaced and mixed with endemic populations of archaic humans and populated the new regions more intensively. Recent discoveries of AMH skeletons in East Asia older tha...

Tübingen Publications on the Archaeology of Southwestern Asia (Nicholas J. Conard, Series Editor) The series presents the results of fieldwork and multi-disciplinary research in archaeology, prehistory and human evolution in the region extending from Arabia to Anatolia and the Middle East. Southwestern Asia plays a key role in the study of innumera...

A series covering the archaeology, natural environment and ancient cultures of Jebel al-buhais, produced by the Department of culture and information of sharjah, the united Arab emirates, in cooperation with the institut für ur-und frühgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters, universität Tübingen, germany. Tübingen Publications in Prehistory A...

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