Browsing by Author "Kuhn, Steven L."

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The Middle Paleolithic Occupations of Ucagizh Ii Cave (Hatay, Turkey): Geoarcheological and Archeological Perspectives
(Elsevier Science Bv, 2015) Baykara, Ismail; Mentzer, Susan M.; Stiner, Mary C.; Asmerom, Yemane; Gulec, Erksin Savas; Kuhn, Steven L.
The site of Ucagizh II is located in a partially collapsed cave on the Mediterranean coast of the Hatay region, South Central Turkey. A small intact chamber (chamber D) preserves a sequence of Middle Paleolithic deposits nearly 2 m thick. Test excavations at the site in 2005 and 2007 produced large assemblages of artifacts, vertebrate and shellfish remains. The entire sequence formed during the Upper Pleistocene, subsequent to MIS 5a. Faunal and lithic assemblages are comparatively homogeneous, consistent with the inference that the deposits formed under relatively constant environmental conditions. Micromorphological analyses reveal an abundance of combustion features and products, although the visibility of the features is locally compromised by local, small-scale bioturbation. There is evidence that the ways fires were created and maintained changed along with the intensity of occupation. Lithic assemblages most closely resemble other Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the northern Levant but there are inconsistencies with the accepted pattern of technological change over time in the Levantine Mousterian more broadly. Faunal and lithic evidence indicate that the intensity and duration of occupational events declined over time at Ucagizh II. While there are many parallels in raw material economy with the early Upper Paleolithic of the nearby Ucagizh I site, the Middle Paleolithic hominins may have used the coastal landscape in a different way from later Upper Paleolithic groups. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Mousterian Lithic Assemblages of Merdivenli Cave
(Univ Agean, dept Mediterranean Stud, 2016) Baykara, Ismail; Kuhn, Steven L.; Baykara, Derya Silibolatlaz
Most scientists agree that modern humans left Africa relatively recently. However, there is less agreement about the number of dispersal events and the route or routes taken by humans and when they migrated out of Africa. The earliest evidence for a dispersal of Homo sapiens into Eurasia comes from the central Levant, but it is unclear how geographically extensive this early dispersal was. Likewise, many researchers agree that Neanderthals dispersed back into the Levant during MIS 5 (123-130 Ka.), but it is uncertain where those populations originated. Information from areas geographically intermediate between the Levant and more distal parts of Eurasia is crucial to obtaining a more realistic understanding of the ebb and flow of human Pleistocene populations. This article examines Middle Paleolithic artifact assemblages from Merdivenli Cave in the Hatay Region, southern Anatolia (Turkey) in order to assess the similarities with better known assemblages from neighboring areas. The stone tools from Merdivenli Cave are characterized Levallois production similar to "Tabun C type" Mousterian assemblages, and therefore it is possible that these assemblages were also associated with archaic Homo sapiens, as in the central Levant.