Read the article. But south-west Asia. However, "newcomers"... we were all newcomers from the Neanderthal and Denisovan perspective at the time. And many more movements would follow.

You don't seem to know what facts are, as you just got some

Large western siberian peninsula, easily locatable on Google maps

About 1.8% of Iraq is forested (slightly up since 1990), but much of Iraq and the surrounding lands were forested a few thousand years ago. However, 6000 + years of land clearance for farming, logging and grazing together with climate getting drier and hotter has reduced the former forests to a shadow of what they were.

My understanding is that part of it is that the colors are essentially part of the plant structure, and they are vibrant to us primates because the same colors show up on fruits when the clorophyll disappear from them. And fruit are important to us so we see the colors of clorophyll -depleted soft plant tissues as vibrant and pleasing.