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1. At the present moment, we think that the “Western Trajectory“ (Maghreb-Iberia corridor, C1 project) did not operate earlier than 15 ka ago, in spite of the early Homo sapiens presence (since 100 ka BP) in North-West Africa. The question is now to be solved, why southern Iberia functioned as an obvious, long-lasting barrier of migration, and why this had changed so rapidly after the last glaciation. By contrast, the Carpathian Basin (part of the Eastern Trajectory of migrations, B-projects) played a complementary role, now appearing as one of the hotspots of rapid replacement of late Middle Palaeolithic adaptation systems by Upper Palaeolithic ones. The coming CRC phase would see an intensive evaluation of the contrasting evidence between the South West and the South East of Europe, at approximately the same latitude. By end of 2016 we accomplished our last limnic coring programme in Iberia, whichnow provides data for direct environmental comparisons with either neighbouring or/and complementary regions.
   
   
2. Along the “Eastern Trajectory“ we regard a surprisingly important role of early MIS 3 (60 - 40 ka BP) with favourable environmental conditions in the Eastern desert of Egypt and matching human occupation phases from Ethiopia through Egypt (A-projects) up to Jordan (B-projects), all at approximately the same time. With the present state of knowledge we do not see any spatio-temporal gradient possibly indicating supra-regional migrations through the apparent environmental corridor. Nor do we see cultural traits bridging all different regions. Just the opposite, the Levantine region (B-projects) may play - though continuously populated - rather a separating than a bridging role between Africa and Western Eurasia, because the regional cultural attributes did not exceed farther south or north than the Levant/Arabia region. Our environmental research (Dead Sea, Kinnereth lakes) has shed light on the growing importance of the MIS 3 Artemisia steppe landscapes. Particular human specialisation and dependence on ungulates browsing Artemisia landscapes may have limited human territorial ranges in the Middle East. Did such specialization at the same time prevent the immigration of African modern humans – in spite of the assumed “window of opportunity“ that existed in early MIS 3 in the Eastern Desert of Egypt?
   
   
3. Compared to the trajectories Maghreb-to-Iberia and Rift-Valley-to-Carpathian-Basin the Central European CRC 806 research areas display ample climatic, environmental and cultural data (D-projects). Consequently, our fieldwork has always been restricted to selected open questions, such as the role of soil formation (in Loess environments) during MIS 3 or the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition (“transitional industries“) at mid-MIS-3. GIS-based interpretation of existing data played a much more prominent role and selected time-slices already allowed for traversing the whole methodological sequence of the CRC - from single data points over preferred human occupation areas to whole contextual areas, and finally up to modelling demographic parameters. This has now been achieved (in collaboration with E1) for one Neolithic time slice (4.3 to 3 ka) and for the Magdalenian time slice (15 ka) in Central and Western Europe, subsequently serving as a paradigmatic pathway of analysis to be applied to other key regions and time slices of the CRC.
   
   
4. The state of research achieved so far argues for strengthening the organisational tie between the remaining regional projects. In bringing seven project groups together in one research group “R“ we intend to facilitate (1) comparison of contrasting regional patterns (2) comparison of neighbouring areas and search for explanations of positive/negative modes of population dynamics and (3) expension of extending the “methodological pathway“ to all relevant regions and time slices of the CRC.