Climate-Human interaction over the Iranian Plateau during the Upper Pleistocene-Holocene: A review

During the past two decades an array of studies have shed light on potential links between the evolution of Hominids as well as Human dispersal out of Africa and episodes of abrupt climate change. Although archaeological evidences suggest that anatomically modified humans appeared in Africa between 200 and 150 ky ago, the timing of the early humans migration out of Africa remained unclear. Strategically located between the Arabian Peninsula and the Eurasia, the Iranian Plateau played a key role with respect to early hominin’s migration route out of Africa. However, due to the scarcity of the Pleistocene-Holocene high resolution paleoclimate records with robust chronology for this region, the impact of climate variability on early human migration and settlements in this region has not fully explored. The climate of the Iranian Plateau is mainly controlled by the interactions between three major synoptic systems: the mid-latitude Westerlies, the Siberian Anticyclone (SA) and the Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon (IOSM).