Some popular medicinal plants and diseases of the Upper Palaeolithic in Western Georgia.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Palynological studies of cultural layers of cave sediments have been used in order to better understand traditional practices. The Upper Palaeolithic in Georgia (36,000-11,000 cal. BP) provides a rich source of such material.

Satsurblia: new insights of human response and survival across the Last Glacial Maximum in the southern Caucasus.

The region of western Georgia (Imereti) has been a major geographic corridor for human migrations during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP). Knowledge of the MP and UP in this region, however, stems mostly from a small number of recent excavations at the sites of Ortvale Klde, Dzudzuana, Bondi, and Kotias Klde. These provide an absolute chronology for the Late MP and MP-UP transition, but only a partial perspective on the nature and timing of UP occupations, and limited data on how human groups in this region responded to the harsh climatic oscillations between 37,000-11,500 years before present.

30,000-year-old wild flax fibers.

A unique finding of wild flax fibers from a series of Upper Paleolithic layers at Dzudzuana Cave, located in the foothills of the Caucasus, Georgia, indicates that prehistoric hunter-gatherers were making cords for hafting stone tools, weaving baskets, or sewing garments. Radiocarbon dates demonstrate that the cave was inhabited intermittently during several periods dated to 32 to 26 thousand years before the present (kyr B.P.