Project description
A new look at the first modern humans in the Iberian Peninsula
Was human settlement of interior Iberia during the last glaciation period (110 000 to 11 700 years ago) more stable than previously thought? For problems such as the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the land use and mobility patterns during the coldest stages of the last glacial, what were the implications at the European scale? To answer such questions, the EU-funded MULTIPALEOIBERIA project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neanderthals and first modern humans in interior Iberia. Due to a historical bias, these regions have remained relatively under-investigated. The project aims to gather unprecedented field evidence by means of a macro-regional fieldwork programme.
Objective
The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
28801 Alcala De Henares/Madrid
Spain