Despite recent discoveries in human evolution, the origin of our species, Homo sapiens, and the process through which it expanded and became established around the globe remain murky. Increasingly, it is viewed as a dynamic
process of population expansions and contact among human lineages, occurring in concert with the Pleistocene climatic oscillations, which influence the probability of human survival as well as the availability of land bridges
enabling expansions. Dispersals and population contact, therefore, may have been the norm in human evolution and may have played a greater role in shaping our species than previously recognised. In such a model, South-East Europe is as a region critical not only for population migration to and from Europe, but also for sustained and / or repeated contact between our own ancestors and archaic species such as the Neanderthals. This make this region critical for testing hypotheses about modern human origins and the Pleistocene dispersals of our species around the world. Despite this crucial role, however, paleoanthropological research there has been relatively neglected in the past, with little existing data and no overarching interpretive framework.
FIRSTSTEPS aims to help fill this research gap by applying inter-disciplinary cutting edge investigation to recover new and connect existing evidence across sites, periods and regions. Key sites and assemblages are investigated from South-East Europe (e.g. Greece, Bosnia, Croatia) and Italy. The latter region has a much better documented record, which has yet to be connected to its counterparts to the East and provides a crucial comparative perspective. The project conducts in-depth analyses of important fossil and cultural assemblages from specific chrono-cultural periods, mainly between ca. 200-30 ka, potentially connected with early modern human expansions, as well as with Neanderthals, aiming to identify patterns of biological and cultural adaptations that may have enabled the spread of Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Field research is conducted at several sites, including at the Apidima cave complex in Mani, Southern Greece; at the Grotta del Poggio and Via San Franceso, Italy; and at Podlipa Cave, Bosnia. All projects are conducted in collaboration with local partners and institutions. These field projects are yielding crucial new data on this critical time period. In the long run the project aims to construct regional and supra-regional perspectives beyond individual sites or countries.
This project addresses some of the most important and basic questions of society, which is to understand in a scientific manner where we, the human species, come from, how we dealt with important challenges, such as climate and environmental change, in the past, and what kinds of biological or cultural adaptations contributed to our successful spread around the world in the Late Pleistocene - and to unsuccessful earlier expansion attempts. Not only will it shed light on deep European prehistory, but also on the history of humanity as a whole, with implications also for humanity's future and the challenges faced going forward.
