Why late earliest occupation of Western Europe ?

Introduction

The project aims to question human migrations and peopling: why did the earliest hominins occupy Western Europe later than other portions of Eurasia? Early hominins conquered Eurasia long before modern humans, the single Homo species living now on the earth. They conquered Eurasia along a rapid Out of Africa movement but left Europe empty for almost 1 million years.

Environmental Constraints

Western Europe faced environmental constraints. This subcontinent is in a remote corner of Eurasia, but other large Eurasian peninsulas are dead ends as well. Certainly, Western Europe's mixture of various environments and topographies changed a lot over time, with the succession of climates causing favorable territories for human occupations to fluctuate.

Archaeological Evidence

However, archaeology in Asia and the Levant shows that hominins did overcome variable climatic conditions and geographies. Investigating why Western Europe has remained out of the Oekoumen for so long is the focus of our research proposal, LATEUROPE.

Research Proposal

We base our research on datasets of interdisciplinary and behavioral materials enriched by future fieldwork in several specific sites and biomes from the key period before 500 ka. This will question, at the local, regional, and continental scale:

1. The environmental, geographic, and climatic conditions of Europe compared to the rest of Eurasia.
2. The characteristics of the hominin occupations and behaviors.
3. Whether a minimum degree of cognition was required to thrive in these lands.

Methodology

Databases will input multiple scenarios combining migration patterns and internal evolution mechanisms, using conceptual modeling and spatial agent-based simulations. This formalized combination of modeling and field methodologies represents an epistemological advance for bringing interdisciplinarity to reality.

Conclusion

This approach allows us to deeply question the ability of Homo species to adapt to harsh environments and to face environmental shocks and changes on a long-term scale.