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<article article-type="research-article" dtd-version="1.3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xml:lang="en"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">nsc</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title xml:lang="en">Archaeology, Ethnology &amp; Anthropology of Eurasia</journal-title><trans-title-group xml:lang="ru"><trans-title>Археология, этнография и антропология Евразии</trans-title></trans-title-group></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">1563-0110</issn><publisher><publisher-name>IAET SB RAS</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.3.017-024</article-id><article-id custom-type="elpub" pub-id-type="custom">nsc-1737</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Research Article</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="section-heading" xml:lang="en"><subject>PALEOENVIRONMENT. THE STONE AGE</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="section-heading" xml:lang="ru"><subject>ПАЛЕОЭКОЛОГИЯ. КАМЕННЫЙ ВЕК</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Early-Middle Acheulean Occupation of the Northern Transcaucasian Highland</article-title><trans-title-group xml:lang="ru"><trans-title></trans-title></trans-title-group></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><name-alternatives><name name-style="western" xml:lang="en"><surname>Belyaeva</surname><given-names>E. V.</given-names></name></name-alternatives><bio xml:lang="en"><p>Dvortsovaya nab. 18A, St. Petersburg, 191186</p></bio><email xlink:type="simple">biface@mail.ru</email><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/></contrib></contrib-group><aff xml:lang="en" id="aff-1"><institution>Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences</institution><country>Russian Federation</country></aff><pub-date pub-type="collection"><year>2023</year></pub-date><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>01</day><month>10</month><year>2023</year></pub-date><volume>51</volume><issue>3</issue><fpage>17</fpage><lpage>24</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>Copyright &amp;#x00A9; Belyaeva E.V., 2023</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2023</copyright-year><copyright-holder xml:lang="ru">Belyaeva E.V.</copyright-holder><copyright-holder xml:lang="en">Belyaeva E.V.</copyright-holder><license xml:lang="ru" license-type="creative-commons-attribution" xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" xlink:type="simple"><license-p>Данная работа распространяется под лицензией Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.</license-p></license><license xml:lang="en" license-type="creative-commons-attribution" xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" xlink:type="simple"><license-p>This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.</license-p></license></permissions><self-uri xlink:href="https://journal.archaeology.nsc.ru/jour/article/view/1737">https://journal.archaeology.nsc.ru/jour/article/view/1737</self-uri><abstract><p>In the northern part of the Transcaucasian Highland (Lori Depression, Armenia), three stratifi ed sites dating to the Early-Middle Acheulean—Karakhach, Kurtan I, and Muradovo—have long been subject to archaeological studies. On the basis of absolute dates and paleomagnetic records relating to the fi rst two sites, their age falls in the interval between the mid-Early and initial Middle Pleistocene. All three sites yielded a uniform industry with a peculiar toolset (various choppers, picks including chisel-ended ones, handaxes, large scrapers, macro-chisels, and macro-knives), manufactured mostly on natural tabular fragments of local volcanic rocks. Certain indicators of this industry, such as subrectangular and fan-shaped choppers, slab-like chisels, etc., are described. Information on 28 other localities with Acheulean artifacts, including 11 stratifi ed ones, recently discovered in various parts of the Lori Depression and in adjacent areas of the Shirak Depression and the Debed River valley, is provided. It is demonstrated that the lithics from all these sites belong to the Karakhach tradition. Data are cited suggesting that three sites (Yagdan, Agvi-canyon, and Agvorik) are over 2 mln years old, and two more (Kurtan II and Dzhradzor) are at least 1.5 mln years old. It is concluded that people associated with the Karakhach Acheulean tradition had appeared in the northern Transcaucasian Highland ~2.0 Ma BP, then settled widely in this area, and remained there for several hundred thousand years. In my view, this may be explained by the very favorable environmental conditions of the region during the Early Pleistocene, and by the abundance of large rock fragments suitable for tool manufacture.</p></abstract><kwd-group xml:lang="en"><kwd>Transcaucasian Highland</kwd><kwd>Early and Middle Acheulean</kwd><kwd>geochronology</kwd><kwd>paleoenvironmental data</kwd><kwd>occupation range</kwd><kwd>industrial tradition</kwd></kwd-group></article-meta></front><back><ref-list><title>References</title><ref id="cit1"><label>1</label><citation-alternatives><mixed-citation xml:lang="ru">Belyaeva E.V. 2020 Dinamika prirodnoy sredy i usloviya obitaniya rannepaleoliticheskikh lyudey na Zakavkazskom nagorye v rannem i srednem pleistotsene. In Rannepaleoliticheskiye pamyatniki i prirodnaya sreda Kavkaza i sopredelnykh territoriy v rannem – srednem pleistotsene. 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