Objective
In antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a network of trade routes known as the Silk Road connected east Asia and the Мiddle East. The Silk Road was not just an economic link, but also the avenue for cultural and even genetic exchanges between these regions. Recent genetic discoveries have hinted that such connections might have begun much earlier, during the Pleistocene. The Pleistocene period is of fundamental importance for human history. It is then that our ancestors evolved and colonised the entire Old World, surviving a suite of major extinction events – and they did so against a dramatic backdrop of ice ages and warmer interglacial phases which substantially altered their habitats. Conquering the extreme environments of arid central Asia to eventually settle the entire Asian mainland and beyond is one of the most impressive feats in this story. Unfortunately, there are too few known Pleistocene archaeological sites in central Asia to allow us to piece together when and how this happened. PALAEOSILKROAD will resolve this deficit by surveying central Asian mountain foothills as both corridors for human and animal movements and archives of past climate change. The project will discover new sites in the Tian Shan, Dzungar, and southern Altai foothills (Kazakhstan) and use them to examine if and how 1) humans were able to survive in the foothills throughout the last glacial cycle (110-11 500 years ago), and 2) periodic advances of mountain glaciers motivated dispersals, population segmentation, and behavioural adaptations. To address these questions, PALAEOSILKROAD will take an ambitious approach rooted in archaeology and contextualised by palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. The results of this project will change the way we understand human dispersals on a global scale and the resilience of early humans in the face of environmental challenges, providing a major missing link to explain how Homo sapiens became the only surviving species of our genus.
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.
- humanities history and archaeology history medieval history
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology ethnoarchaeology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography glaciology
- social sciences sociology anthropology physical anthropology
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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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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
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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-2016-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.
72074 Tuebingen
Germany
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.