Highland–lowland connections and interactions

Of the world’s habitable landscapes, mountain environments present humans with striking adaptive challenges but also unique resources and opportunities. Our genus’ early and longstanding engagement with highland environments is demonstrated by abundant archaeological evidence, from pre-Middle Stone Age African populations, to Neandertals and Denisovans in Eurasia, to modern humans in high mountains and plateaus around the globe. Our ability to thrive in highlands is a testament to hominins’ ecological plasticity, our ability to occupy, utilize, and ultimately become specialists in diverse zones. Yet, uplands do not exist in isolation but are intimately integrated with adjacent slopes and lowlands. Complex topography and its attendant microclimates and biodiversity likely exerted a recurrent draw on humans. In this session we invite colleagues working in various mountain regions and time periods to explore highland-lowland connections by humans and our ancestors. Were the earliest explorations of mountain environments tentative, or was dispersal into highlands a more rapid process? Were montane environments marginal or productive relative to alternative ecozones? Were highlands and their resources used to supplement lowland-focused settlement systems, or were highland settlement systems more self-contained? Did people move between various elevation floors and ecological zones via transhumance, or were inter-zonal connections social or ritual in character? How were highland landscapes and their resources learned over time? We welcome dialogue connecting with these and other questions concerning human engagement with highlands and connections with lowlands.