SFB 806: Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary

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The cultural-environmental context of the spread of anatomically modern humans (AMH) from their cradle in Africa to one of their “sinks” (Central Europe) is the focus of the CRC 806 (SFB 806) “Our Way to Europe”, since its start in 2009. With archaeological and geoscientific methods the projects follow the main migration routes of our ancestors out of Africa and into Europe in order to reconstruct past climates, cultures, population changes and living conditions to better understand the push and pull factors of the dispersal and retreat of our ancestors. Similar to the first two phases of the CRC 806 (the last seven years) the complete timeframe (MIS 6 to MIS 1) to be studied in our project differs by region: In East-Africa it started about 190,000 years ago (during MIS 6) with the first appearance of AMH in Ethiopia. Their dispersal into in the Middle East (and to other African regions) followed – based on results from different research fields outside the CRC 806 - during MIS 5 to MIS 3 in several “waves”, which did not all end successfully: i.e with the long-lasting dominance of our ancestors in these new regions. Especially in the Middle East they might have been hampered by Neanderthals first, but came back during MIS 4 to MIS 3 when they managed to move onwards into SE-Europe. At our Western corridor MIS 5 to MIS 2 are relevant time frames while in Central Europe the spread of AMH happened during MIS 3/4 until MIS 1.What were the main triggers supporting or preventing this mobility? So far, we have indications that it was a set of reasons working in concert that certainly differed in time and space: climate, environment and cultural contexts as well as population densities. It has been discussed (Stringer 2011: 221) that population growth is one of the critical factors in building up and conserving behavioural novelties in ancient human communities. These new behavioural strategies should have also pushed people to be best adapted to new challenges in new regions.