Project description
Early human adaptations to harsh conditions
What do we know about the mobility of hunter-gatherer groups that lived 11 000-35 000 years ago in western Europe? How did they interact with mountain areas during the last glacial episode? To answer these questions, the ERC-funded SPEGEOCHERT project will focus on the Pyrenean mountain chain. By studying the lithic tools and those made of chert, it will uncover the economic and adaptive strategies of Homo sapiens of the Upper Palaeolithic. The aim is to determine whether mobility between the two parts of the Pyrenees was only through the ends of the mountain range or whether it involved secondary routes. Results will broaden our knowledge of human adaptations to harsh conditions and change the archaeological approach to analysing lithic raw materials.
Objective
In Palaeolithic archaeology, steep mountain ranges have been perceived as geographical barriers, impeding human mobility from the territories that flank them on both sides. This is the case of the Pyrenean mountain chain, a key area for studying mobility and territoriality of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, especially during the last glaciation (c. 120.000 11.000 BP), due to its geographic location and harsh environmental conditions. The Pyrenees were until recently considered by archaeologists as a complete hindrance to human mobility and the only possibility, it was thought, was through the less abrupt extremes. However, in my earlier work I was able to suggest that humans may have crossed over the mountains by several alternative itineraries, proposing that the classic view is most probably wrong. These works were based on a new approach to the analysis of prehistoric chert tools using geochemical methods and it is in this context that the SPEGEOCHERT project aims to investigate.
The project will innovatively employ an array of interdisciplinary methods to explore the possible routeways humans followed through the Pyrenees to overcome the rough milieu. This pioneering approach will be based on portable, low-cost, non-destructive, fast and accurate techniques consisting on the use of reflectance spectroscopy combined with geochemistry and the application of multi-variate statistics and GIS to develop predictive modelling. Through the analysis of large series of materials directly at the museums, the SPEGEOCHERT project will create a novel data corpus with accurate information related to the geological chert sources exploited by Palaeolithic groups. The results obtained in this project will not only significantly broaden our knowledge on human adaptations to harsh ecological conditions and the understanding of mobility through mountains, but will also radically change the archaeological approach to the analysis of lithic raw materials.
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.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography cartography geographic information systems
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography glaciology
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy
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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.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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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
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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
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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-2022-STG
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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.
08007 BARCELONA
Spain
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