Project description
Understanding what led to Neanderthals’ disappearance in Europe
We now know more than ever about how Neanderthals disappeared and how our species successfully expanded across a single, enormous piece of land called Eurasia. Nevertheless, challenges remain in assessing how it all unfolded across this combined landmass. To address these obstacles, the EU-funded FINISTERRA project will focus its studies on the Iberian Peninsula, which is considered one of the last refuge zones of Neanderthals. It will introduce high-resolution data on the events that caused Neanderthals’ final disappearance, explore the existence of early warning signals of their demise and investigate other hypotheses about how they steadily or abruptly lost their resiliency.
Objective
In recent years, knowledge of the processes involved in the disappearance of the Neanderthals and the successful expansion of our species across Eurasia has substantially increased. Still, the spatiotemporal variability of the presumed mechanisms behind Neanderthals’ demise – climate change, fragile demography, inter-species competition – makes it very challenging to evaluate the replacement at a continental scale. The Iberian Peninsula, due to its cul-de-sac position and the role of its southern regions as one of the last refugia for the Neanderthals, represents an ideal natural setting for testing models of cultural and demographic trajectories leading to the final disappearance of those populations. FINISTERRA seeks to expand this framework by implementing an integrative, interdisciplinary, multi-scale approach to the archaeological and paleoenvironmental records associated with late Neanderthals in southwestern Iberia. Supported by an unprecedented combination of geoarchaeological, chronological, and paleoecological evidence, FINISTERRA will specifically (1) provide a detailed characterization of late Neanderthal adaptive systems, presenting high-resolution data on the timeline of events leading to their final disappearance; (2) investigate the presence of the so-called early warning signals of Neanderthals’ collapse through the use of cutting-edge quantitative analyses of cultural and demographic trajectories; (3) explore alternative hypotheses of a gradual or sudden loss of Neanderthals’ resilience by considering the impacts of climate change and the spread of modern humans into western Eurasia. The results of this project will have crucial implications for our understanding of the factors contributing to the demise of our sister species, which ultimately were key components for our own success and uniqueness.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology demography
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology ethnoarchaeology
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-COG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
8005 139 FARO
Portugal
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.