Descrizione del progetto
Un nuovo sguardo ai primi esseri umani moderni della penisola iberica
L’insediamento umano dell’Iberia interna durante l’ultima glaciazione (fra 110 000 e 11 700 anni fa) è stato più stabile di quanto si pensasse? Per problemi come la sostituzione dei Neanderthal con l’uomo moderno, il primo popolamento umano moderno d’Europa e i modelli di uso del suolo e di mobilità durante le fasi più fredde dell’ultima glaciazione, quali sono state le implicazioni su scala europea? Per rispondere a queste domande, il progetto MULTIPALEOIBERIA, finanziato dall’UE, indagherà sulle dinamiche della popolazione e sulle interazioni uomo-ambiente degli ultimi Neanderthal e dei primi esseri umani moderni nell’Iberia interna. A causa di un pregiudizio storico, queste regioni sono rimaste relativamente poco studiate. Il progetto si propone di raccogliere prove sul campo mai trovate prima attraverso un programma di lavoro sul campo a livello macroregionale.
Obiettivo
The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
28801 Alcala De Henares/Madrid
Spagna