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Modern phytolith assemblages as indicators of vegetation in the southern Caucasus

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Abstract

As the southern Caucasus is extremely rich in archaeological sites, understanding the palaeoenvironmental conditions there is critical for interpreting the behavior, subsistence, and settlement patterns of the many and varied groups of hominins that occupied the region throughout the Pleistocene. Phytoliths can serve as valuable indicators of past environments, especially in cases where organic preservation is poor. Therefore, these results of a pilot-study on modern phytolith assemblages from Georgia and Armenia are presented here as a sound basis for the future interpretation of fossil assemblages from the region. The soil samples for phytoliths which were collected from modern vegetation units cover specifically open vegetation in steppes and semi-deserts and also closed vegetation, in broadleaved and coniferous woods, as well as in wetlands and riverside woodlands. Using relative abundance data and multivariate statistics, it is possible to show how the vegetation types in the region give rise to particular phytolith assemblages, which are statistically significant and recognizable. Especially strong statistical relationships occur between arid semi-deserts and the occurrence of Saddle phytolith types, while Rondel, Crenate, and Trapeziform are related to steppes. Bilobate, Bilobate with concave ends, and Cross are associated with wetlands and wet woodlands. Acute are clearly associated with conifers, whereas broadleaved trees do not show any characteristic phytolith association in the sampled dataset. However, some commonly used phytolith indices do not work properly in the region. The obtained results reveal statistical relationships between phytolith assemblages and vegetation that can be applied to fossil material and which may serve as an important resource for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions in this region.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ivan Gabrielyan and Friedemann Schrenk for help during field work. Furthermore, we would like to thank Mikhail Blinnikov, Chad Yost, and Katharina Neumann for helping Johan Jarl with phytolith processing and identification protocols. Thanks are due to Claudia Groth for help with figures and in the laboratory. In addition, thanks to Alexia Smith for allowing use of the UCONN archaeobotany laboratory. Funding was in part provided by the UConn Anthropology SRF. We are also grateful to the ROCEEH Research Centre ‘The role of culture in early expansions of humans’ of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (http://www.roceeh.net) and the Bundesministerium für Bilding und Forschung (German Ministry of Education and Research) (grant BMBF 01DK17023) for financial support. This work is a contribution to NECLIME (http://www.neclime.de). The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for very helpful comments and suggestions.

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  1. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Johan Jarl

  2. ROCEEH Research Centre, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Senckenberg Research Institute, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325, Frankfurt/M, Germany

    Angela A. Bruch

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Jarl, J., Bruch, A.A. Modern phytolith assemblages as indicators of vegetation in the southern Caucasus. Veget Hist Archaeobot 32, 561–581 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-023-00921-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-023-00921-5

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