How to survive the glacial apocalypse: Hominin mobility strategies in late Pleistocene Central Asia

Previous research concerning the biogeography of hominin populations in Central Asia indicates persistence across interglacial/glacial sequences. Hominin groups are present on the landscape during the coldest episodes of the Last Glacial Period. Moreover, the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) likely served as a geographic conduit for human groups that found refuge in the foothill regions of the Altai Mountains as well as those of the southwestern horn of the Tien Shan; this conduit can be construed as the stage upon which hominin admixture occurred. The present study broadens the geographic focus of previous work to include the steppe and steppe/desert zones immediately adjacent to the biologically productive foothills of the IAMC. Using an ecological threshold model, four abiotic variables that best predict hominin site locations are analyzed to examine differences in fundamental niche structure when the IAMC foothills are compared to the adjacent steppic zones. Our null hypothesis is that the foothills and adjacent steppe present similar abiotic profiles. Our results, however, indicate significant differences between these regions, suggesting the foothills would have presented hominins with a more attractive landscape in both glacial and interglacial time periods than the steppe. Counterintuitively, these differences are actually more extreme during interglacial time periods. This preliminary model of hominin-environment interactions serves as a useful example for the ways by which mid-scale hominin dispersal trajectories are mapped and interpreted.