The Chronological Complications of Human Landscapes during the Pleistocene epoch in the Northern Central Desert; Case study: Paleolithic Landscapes in Eyvanekey

The northern strip of the Iranian Central Desert (NICD) is thought to be one of the dispersal corridors and habitats that facilitated the movements of Pleistocene hominin populations in West Asia. Over the last few decades, field surveys in the NICD have led to the discovery of a significant number of Paleolithic localities. These localities exhibit a diverse range of site typologies, encompassing caves, rock shelters, open-air sites, and surface scatters. Furthermore, from a chronological perspective, they cover the time interval from the later Lower Paleolithic to Epipaleolithic periods (i.e., to the end of the Pleistocene epoch). Despite the significant number of Paleolithic sites, only two of them present an absolute chronology. The others have only been relatively dated based on techno-typological ground and regional comparison (comparisons with the West Asian lithic assemblages that have an absolute chronology), which is tentative at best. There are some drawbacks to this kind of dating in the archaeology of surface scatters, some of the most important of them are as follows:In the first place, the richness of the formal or typical Paleolithic stone tools is restricted, and many of the types are present over long-time intervals. Some of them were made and used over two million years. To overcome such “time insensitivity”, there are some claims that the relative abundance of each tool type could offer more help for containing chronology, yet it is highly subjective, and no one knows exactly what percentage of tool types differentiate Middle Paleolithic from Upper Paleolithic assemblages, for instance. Second, the number of pieces in each surface lithic assemblage that requires chronological decoding must be large, at least in the order of a couple of hundred pieces. Moreover, these pieces should be recovered in a relatively limited area in a clustered fashion, not scattered across extensive tracts of land. Otherwise, establishing a connection between them and considering them as one or more related collections would be difficult at best. In addition, we need to show that the high density at the surface is not due to natural/erosional processes, but rather is the result of Pleistocene human activity. Third, it is necessary before estimating regional relative chronology to have a significant number of absolutely dated Paleolithic sites to compare the undated lithic assemblages in question to those from the sites with absolute chronologyas a guide atlas. If there are major similarities in the lithics of the surface to one of the atlas sites, then we could be able to suggest dating for our surface scatter tentatively and roughly. Such an atlas is not available for the NICD at present. Thus, it is possible that reassessing previous surface lithic assemblages based on new absolute dating in the region in future would result in a correction of the formers' relative dating. Attributing absolute chronology to Iranian Paleolithic sites is fraught with difficulty. The absence of special laboratories in Iran necessitates the transfer of samples out of the country and collaboration between Iranian and non-Iranian research institutions. These steps are time-consuming and require more budget and logistics than usual. In view of this, the NICD’s Paleolithic chronology is poorly done, and the evolution of lithic industries has not been mapped despite two decades of field investigations. The two sites of Mirak and Qaleh Kurd, despite being dated, do not demonstrate long Paleolithic sequences, and while the former belongs to the second part of the Late Pleistocene, the latter shows the lithic industries of the second part of the Middle Pleistocene. Consequently, the NICD suffers from lacking type sites with long sequences and lithic industries in time order. Fourth, relative dating could also be done using type fossils, or fossils directeurs which are the tool types or methods that were made and used in a relatively limited period. The presence of a significant number of them in an assemblage could help to attribute relative dates to that collection. Such artifacts are infrequent or absent in some of the NICD surface scatters. Fifth, the scatters with no fossile directeur or formal tools and the so-called expedient industry are extremely challenging for dating. The landscape of Eyvaneky in the central parts of the NICD, with extensive and sparse lithic surface scatters, is one example. Another problem (sixth) that is often referred to for surface scatters is mixing, meaning that surface scatters could be an amalgamation of different periods. Hence, separating the members of different periods one by one is practically impossible. This results in erroneous ratios of types and methods, which leads to defective relative chronology.The final remark concerning the Paleolithic Period of the NICD is the scarcity of in-situ archaeological deposits. The scarce, usually thin, and fragmentary Pleistocene cultural deposits in the NICD are usually found accidentally with a touch of luck. Old and young Holocene clastic deposits cover most of the surfaces in this strip, obscuring any Pleistocene traces. Both Holocene and Pleistocene deposits are eroded together when they are denuded by sheet wash, deflation, or gravity, and the erosion does not affect only Holocene deposits. As a result, what remains is neither regolith nor sediment, but only desert pavements with no associated deposits. This is observed in the landscape of Eyvanekey. The boundary of Paleolithic sites in Eyvanekey is not clear since all the paleo exposures are of the desert pavement type. The other surfaces are covered with thick to thin Holocene deposits, so nobody could guess what lies beneath. Ironically, aridification can sometimes be a blessing for desert archaeologists since it leads to stronger wind regimes and ultimately removes the top surface of recent strata.

کلیدواژه ها:

The Northern Iranian Central Desert ، Paleolithic Period ، Chronology ، Surface Lithic Scatters