Objetivo
EUROREFUGIA aims to contribute to the on-going debate about the causes of the rapid replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans in Europe around ±45 kyr BP and the probable difficulties that the former could have faced while withdrawing to certain refuge areas until their final extinction ±10 kyr years later. This is a key period of human evolution that witnessed the confrontation of two different but advanced cultures. Among other possible explanations, EUROREFUGIA focuses on the palaeoeconomic perspective, and hence, it will characterize the hunting skills of both human species and, above all, their ability to cope with a changing scenario.
To do so, EUROREFUGIA will study faunal material of the two main known refugia: the Balkans and the Iberian Peninsula, with a multidisciplinary approach that includes:
1. An updated archaeozoological analysis of the unpublished macromammalian remains belonging to the last Neanderthal and earliest modern human occupations of La Viña rock shelter and El Miron Cave, on the Cantabrian Coast, and Salitrena Pecina, in Central Serbia.
2. A detailed reconstruction of the strategy of subsistence adopted by both human species: diet-breadth, butchering processes (taphonomy), human mobility, transport decisions, catchment areas (GIS) and intra-site spatial organization.
3. A complete analysis of stable isotopes (C, N and O) of red deer fossils sampled from contemporaneous archaeological sites in both regions, which will provide the palaeoenvironmental context where both human species lived.
4. An estimation of the relationship between diet, demography, topography and climate change in order to investigate whether climatic variability, lack of suitable technology to exploit different biotopes, increasing competition or resource depletion could have caused Neanderthal populations to diminish.
5. A comparison between two geographic regions that share a similar topographic relief but have different climates.
Ámbito científico
Convocatoria de propuestas
FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoria
Régimen de financiación
MC-CIG - Support for training and career development of researcher (CIG)Coordinador
39005 Santander
España