Ecological Landscape Structure and Game Management Strategy among the Upper Palaeolithic Societies of Southern Zagros Mountains

Abstract

ABSTRACT Complex social organisation, technological skills and specialised foraging strategies are considered as modernity indicators in the history of Homo sapiens’ evolution. However, the timing and nature of these abilities are poorly understood. Research on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic faunal remains and settlement patterns in the Zagros Mountains of Iran proposed the model of ‘game management’ for hunter-gatherer societies, reflecting their advanced cultural development affected by their environmantal contxt in this part of the world. Using various methods, including ecological landscape structure analysis, site location and archaeological remains, this paper reveals that the Late Pleistocene’s hunters had a considerable focus on strategic corridors. We argue this behaviour improved the hunters game management tactic among the Upper Palaeolithic population in the Dasht-e Rostam area of the Southern Zagros Mountains. We demonstrate how the environmental adaptability accelerated Homo sapiens’ modernity around 40 kyr ago. Although this proficiency resulted in increasing meat supply, it required a high level of intra-group communication and fitness, seasonal adaptations and specific technologies to compete with other predators using the same strategy in the Southern Zagros.