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Fieldwork performed in selected key areas in Jordan (Wadi Sabra/Petra), the Carpathian Basin, Albania, and the Lower Danube region has helped us to better understand the archaeological signal, the palaeoenvironments, and the palaeoclimatic evolution of the last ca. 50 ka in south-eastern Europe. In the third CRC806 phase, field work will be limited to the completion of these ongoing investigations. While there is little doubt about the African origin of Homo sapiens, there is only scattered knowledge about the exact timing, dispersal routes and environmental conditions of their earliest occurrence in Europe. Until today, it is still unknown which industries best indicate the presence of the earliest groups of Homo sapiens in Eurasia and what subsistence strategies were used at different stages and locations. Furthermore, though Homo sapiens crossed specific climatic and environmental zones on their way into Europe, how this is reflected in the material culture is largely unexplored. The project B1 team aims to fill these gaps based on a combination of archaeological, geoarchaeological, sedimentological, and geomorphological studies. Several key locations along different ecozones and environments of the potential "Eastern Trajectory" towards Central Europe will be studied in detail. Working areas of the third and last phase of the project have been selected according to the first appearance of Homo sapiens attested by human fossils outside of Africa and in Europe.
Starting around 190 ka before present in Africa, the dispersal of Homo sapiens seems to have been interrupted in the Near East (Levant) at least once. The first occurrence of Homo sapiens in the Levant is indicated at about 100 ka BP by fossil finds, but unaccompanied by major changes in the Middle Palaeolithic material culture. A recent type of Homo sapiens then appears as late as 46–35 ka BP, and is only then associated with a genuine Near Eastern Upper Palaeolithic material culture (the Ahmarian, dated to after 38 ka BP). Until today, both the circumstances for this break and a possible interference with already established western Eurasian Neanderthal populations are open questions.
The oldest unequivocal Homo sapiens fossils in Western and Central Europe found in an archaeological context were dated to around 31 ka BP. However, isolated Homo sapiens fossils were found in Romania dating significantly older, to approximately 35 ka BP. It follows that neither the human type of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic nor the kind of lithic industry associated to the earliest Homo sapiens in Europe are known. This lack of information about the archaeology of the first European Homo sapiens not only brings up the question about their cultural background, but at the same time hampers archaeological links between the Levantine and European early Upper Palaeolithic industries. Furthermore, it is still not clear whether these earliest anatomically modern groups were the founders of the European Upper Palaeolithic population, or if later Upper Palaeolithic waves of immigrating Homo sapiens replaced them. To answer these questions, the project investigates the possible role of principal large rivers in the migration of Palaeolithic populations along the Jordan Rift Valley, the Timiş River catchment in the Banat, the Lower Danube as well as the Prut and Dnestr valleys.
In these working areas the project team concentrates on combining archaeological and geoscientific investigations of Pleistocene archives in order to:
- develop a detailed regional chronostratigraphy by dating sediments (aeolian, fluvial, limnic) and archaeological sites
- geomorphologically map the catchment areas surrounding archaeological locales for a better understanding palaeoenvironments and process response systems, and
- investigate high-resolution proxy records to increase our understanding of the palaeoclimatic conditions
The work in Jordan will focus on two early Upper Palaeolithic sites and their sedimentological context within a tributary wadi (Wadi Sabra) of the Jordan Rift Valley, which is part of the "Levantine Corridor" for the expansion of Homo sapiens. In Romania, excavations of early Upper Palaeolithic sites in the Carpathian Basin are supported by geoarchaeological investigations in a region with extensive loess and loess-like sediment-covers in the Danube Valley, an assumed pathway of Homo sapiens towards Western Europe.