Boris Gasparyan

The Upper Palaeolithic site of Kalavan 1 (Armenia): an Epigravettian settlement in the Lesser Caucasus.

The open-air site of Kalavan 1 is located in the Aregunyats mountain chain (at 1640 m above sea level) on the northern bank of Lake Sevan. It is the first Upper Palaeolithic site excavated in Armenia. Led by an Armenian-French team, several excavations (2005-2009) have revealed a well preserved palaeosoil, dated to around 14,000 BP (years before present), containing fauna, lithic artefacts, as well as several hearths and activity areas that structure the settlement. The initial studies enable placement of the site in its environment and justify palaeoethnological analysis of the Epigravettian human groups of the Lesser Caucasus.

The chalcolithic of the Near East and south-eastern Europe: discoveries and new perspectives from the cave complex Areni-1, Armenia

The archaeological exploration of a cave in the southern Caucasus revealed evidence for early social complexity, ritual burial and wine-making in the early fourth millennium. The marvellous preservation of wood, leather and plants offers a valuable contrast to the poorer assemblages on contemporary tell sites. The authors make the case that the Areni-1 cave complex indicates connections between the urbanisation of early Mesopotamia and the Maikop culture of south Russia.

Massive influence of DNA isolation and library preparation approaches on palaeogenomic sequencing data

The ability to access genomic information from ancient samples has provided many important biological insights. Generating such palaeogenomic data requires specialised methodologies, and a variety of procedures for all stages of sample preparation have been proposed. However, the specific effects and biases introduced by alternative laboratory procedures is insufficiently understood. Here, we investigate the effects of three DNA isolation and two library preparation protocols on palaeogenomic data obtained from four Pleistocene subfossil bones. We find that alternative methodologies can significantly and substantially affect total DNA yield, the mean length and length distribution of recovered fragments, nucleotide composition, and the total amount of usable data generated. Furthermore, we also detect significant interaction effects between these stages of sample preparation on many of these factors. Effects and biases introduced in the laboratory can be sufficient to confound estimates of DNA degradation, sample authenticity and genomic GC content, and likely also estimates of genetic diversity and population structure. Future palaeogenomic studies need to carefully consider the effects of laboratory procedures during both experimental design and data analysis, particularly when studies involve multiple datasets generated using a mixture of methodologies.

Dog molars as personal ornaments in a Kura-Araxes child burial (Kalavan-1, Armenia)

Abstract Two perforated dog molars were found directly associated with a Kura-Araxes child burial from the third millennium BC in Armenia. Both teeth show trimming of the root ends and boring of a biconical hole through the lingual root with a hand-held stone tool. Expedient manufacture, the anatomical location of the hole and use-wear suggest that the molars were suspended in order to display their crowns as part of a necklace that also included two stone beads. This is an unusual type of personal ornament and the first of its kind reported in the South Caucasus. Its use in a Kura-Araxes burial is interpreted as an active modification of the funerary symbolism during this period.

Modern wolves trace their origin to a late Pleistocene expansion from Beringia

Grey wolves (Canis lupus) are one of the few large terrestrial carnivores that maintained a wide geographic distribution across the Northern Hemisphere throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene. Recent genetic studies have suggested that, despite this continuous presence, major demographic changes occurred in wolf populations between the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, and that extant wolves trace their ancestry to a single late Pleistocene population. Both the geographic origin of this ancestral population and how it became widespread remain a mystery. Here we analyzed a large dataset of novel modern and ancient mitochondrial wolf genomes, spanning the last 50,000 years, using a spatially and temporally explicit modeling framework to show that contemporary wolf populations across the globe trace their ancestry to an expansion from Beringia at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum - a process most likely driven by the significant ecological changes that occurred across the Northern Hemisphere during this period. This study provides direct ancient genetic evidence that long-range migration has played an important role in the population history of a large carnivore and provides an insight into how wolves survived the wave of megafaunal extinctions at the end of the last glaciation. Moreover, because late Pleistocene grey wolves were the likely source from which all modern dogs trace their origins, the demographic history described in this study has fundamental implications for understanding the geographical origin of the dog.

Living on the Edge: The Earliest Modern Human Settlement of the Armenian Highlands in Aghitu-3 Cave

Aghitu-3 Cave is the first stratified Upper Paleolithic (UP) cave site discovered in Armenia. The site is situated at an elevation of 1601 m in the southern Armenian Highlands and has yielded three intact archaeological horizons. The site has an excellent preservation of paleoecological archives, which allow for a comprehensive interpretation of the climate and environment at the time when the first modern humans populated the region.

Le paléolithique moyen de la haute vallée du Kasakh (Arménie): caractérisation technologique et peuplement de montagne

L’article livre le resultat d’une serie de prospections (2003-2007), doublees le cas echeant de sondages pour une zone d’Armenie jusqu’a present quasi-inedite quant aux modalites de peuplement pleistocene. La region correspond a la haute vallee du Kasakh avec des sites s’etageant entre 1855 et 2302 m d’altitude entre differents edifices volcaniques. Malgre l’altitude, elle est remarquable par la presence de facteurs propices aux occupations pleistocenes : abondance d’une excellente matiere premiere (obsidienne), structures d’accueil naturelles avec une geomorphologie favorable aux etablissements humains, paleolacs et omnipresence de l’eau. Le parametre biotique est helas absent, de meme que les donnees chronostratigraphiques, mais la densite de sites, leur originalite et la qualite des series recueillies signent une discrete presence de l’Acheuleen s. l., mais surtout une ou plusieurs phases du Paleolithique moyen. Le Paleolithique superieur est absent. Pour le Paleolithique moyen, les schemas de production sont largement domines par les methodes Levallois avec plusieurs modalites : unipolaire convergent – y compris a pointe –, laminaire, centripete, etc. L’outillage cadre assez bien avec le bilan connu pour le Paleolithique moyen du Sud Caucase et les rapprochements nous menent vers des schemas comparatifs contemporains de phases clementes de l’OIS 5, eventuellement de l’OIS 3.

Environments and societies of small Caucasus (Armenia) in the light of the Quaternary climatic changes and landscape mutations

(1) Laboratoire Méditerranéen de Préhistoire Europe Afrique, UMR 6636, Aix-en-Provence, France (2) Department of Cartography and Geomorphology , Yerevan State University, Armenia (3) Centre de Bio-Archéologie et d’Ecologie, UMR 5059, Montpellier, France (4) Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (5) UMR 5125 PEPS, Université Lyon 1, Bt Géode, Lyon Cedex, France (6) Maison de l’Orient, UMR 5133 Archéorient, Lyon, France (7) UMR 5808, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, Bordeaux, France (8) Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.