Pleistocene to Holocene stratigraphy of Azokh 1 cave, Lesser Caucasus

Azokh Cave is located in the southern Caucasus and contains a Pleistocene and Holocene sediment infill. The site is significant due to its geographic location at an important migratory route-way between the African subcontinent and Eurasia, and the recovery of Middle Pleistocene hominid remains in the sedimentary sequence during a previous phase of excavation. The stratigraphy of the largest of the cave's entrance passages, Azokh 1, is described in full in this paper for the first time. It is broadly divisible into nine units. Our investigations have shown that the stratigraphy splits between two spatially isolated sequences. The upper of these two sequences has proven to be fossiliferous and has yielded many types of mammal (macro and micro) fossils as well as evidence for human occupation. The base of this fossiliferous (upper) sequence is dated at around 300ka whilst the uppermost level appears to be largely confined to the Holocene (≈150 years bp).