Objective
Despite long study, European paleoanthropology is still hotly debated and continues to produce unexpected and surprising findings. Such discoveries have radically changed our ideas about human presence in Europe: The former view of Europe as inhospitable to humans until 500 thousand years before present (ka) is now challenged by new evidence indicating colonization at just over one million years ago. Although these discoveries represent breakthroughs in European paleoanthropology, many questions remain about the identity of these earliest colonizers, their place of origin, their adaptations enabling their dispersal and their relationship to later hominins. After 500 ka the European fossil human record is more abundant, but still difficult to interpret: the number of species present and their relationship to each other and to African/Asian contemporaries is not well understood. Questions also arise with the advent of modern humans, Homo sapiens, in Europe around 40 ka, and the degree and kind of potential interaction between them and the Eurasian hominin Homo neanderthalensis.
In this discussion crucial information that would decisively help resolve these problems is lacking. Such evidence would come from the gateway through which both archaic and early modern people likely entered Europe, the southern part of the Balkan peninsula. This region lies directly on the most likely route of dispersal between Africa, W. Asia and Europe and is one of the three major European refugia for fauna, flora and likely also human populations during glacial periods. Paleoanthropological research in the area, however, has been sparse. The proposed high risk project aims to document the earliest human dispersals into Europe, the possible role of the region in late Neanderthal survival, and the earliest venture of modern humans in Europe. Such an undertaking is imperative if our hypotheses about the course of events of human evolution in Europe are to be tested.
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: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
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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.
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.
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.
ERC-2011-StG_20101124
See other projects for this call
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.
Host institution
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.