Archaeological evidence for two culture diverse Neanderthal populations in the North Caucasus and contacts between them.

Neanderthals were widespread during the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) across Europe and Asia, including the Caucasus Mountains. Occupying the border between eastern Europe and West Asia, the Caucasus is important region regarding the Neanderthal occupation of Eurasia. On current radiometric estimates, the MP is represented in the Caucasus between about 260-210 ka and about 40 ka.

Sedimentary Dosimetry for the Saradj-Chuko Grotto: A Cave in a Lava Tube in the North-Central Caucasus, Russia.

Karst caves host most European Paleolithic sites. Near the Eurasian-Arabian Plate convergence in the Caucasus' Lower Chegem Formation, Saradj-Chuko Grotto (SCG), a lava tube, contains 16 geoarchaeologically distinct horizons yielding modern to laminar obsidian-rich Middle Paleolithic (MP) assemblages. Since electron spin resonance (ESR) can date MP teeth with 2-5% uncertainty, 40 sediment samples were analyzed by neutron activation analysis to measure volumetrically averaged sedimentary dose rates.

On the industrial attributions of the Aterian and Mousterian of the Maghreb.

North Africa is quickly emerging as one of the more important regions yielding information on the origins of modern Homo sapiens. Associated with significant fossil hominin remains are two stone tool industries, the Aterian and Mousterian, which have been differentiated, respectively, primarily on the basis of the presence and absence of tanged, or stemmed, stone tools. Largely because of historical reasons, these two industries have been attributed to the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic rather than the African Middle Stone Age.