The MIS 4 environmental stress impact on hominin occupation in the northwestern Caucasus: New evidence from the Hadjoh 2 site

Abstract

The Hadjoh 2 open-air site is one of a few Middle Palaeolithic sites known in the northwestern Caucasus, which provide evidence of both the early (MIS 5) and late (MIS 3) stages of the Middle Palaeolithic occupation of the region. The 2020 multidisciplinary research indicates that Hadjoh 2 preserves four distinct Middle Palaeolithic layers, which house the evidence for hominins that produced the Middle Palaeolithic assemblages and visited the site periodically from about 120–100 ka in MIS 5d to about 50–45 ka in MIS 3. At present, Hadjoh 2 is the only Middle Palaeolithic open-air site in the North Caucasus, in which the site's lithostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental conditions were investigated by means of modern-level studies, including palynological and paleopedologic analyses, and magnetic proxy data.