The southeastern region of the Caspian Sea, specifically eastern Mazandaran, indicates an incredible and rich environment that presents three major landscapes: the highlands, the plains, and the coastal shores (littoral). Each of these three landscapes provides a vast and reliable food and raw source for the habitants nowadays. But through the times, especially from the Mesolithic to Neolithic era, this region witnessed changes caused by regressions and transgressions of Caspian Sea levels and climatic changes. These paleo-climatic events played an important role in the lifestyle of Mesolithic people and changed their ways of the food providing process. The late Khvalynian transgressions and Mangyshlak regressions are the great climatic changes that happened in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The faunal remains from caves and sites such as Hotu, Kamarband (Belt), Al Tapphe, Komishan Cave, and Komishani Tappeh indicate a great shift in sustenance which may lead them to the Neolithization and Neolithic era and Domestication of species. Evidence shows that in the first part the maritime species were the main food source and in the second part goats, sheep, gazelle, and other animals were the better choices. The authors attend to investigate this hypothesis through the archeological and environmental evidence from excavations and field surveys.
