Temporal and spatial corridors of Homo sapiens sapiens population dynamics during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene

Abstract

“Our Way to Europe – Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary” is a research initiative that is funded since July 2009 by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a Collaborative Research Centre (CRC). The CRC 806 is based at the University of Cologne, University of Bonn and the RWTH Aachen University. The present special issue of Quaternary International compiles 17 contributions defining the starting points and describing first results of the CRC 806. All contributions result from research reports the authors presented at an interdisciplinary workshop held at Rösrath near Cologne in 2011, and the subsequent discussions during the workshop. Results of recent fieldwork and respective analysis, completed since the workshop took place, are also included.

The CRC 806 is a 12-year-program, to be evaluated every four years, devoted to the history of modern mankind. Our approach combines geoscientific and archaeological methods to focus on prehistoric population dynamics. Population dynamics and dispersal processes contributed essentially to the transmission of ideas, techniques, cultural behavior and the formation of human societies. Major events in the history of mankind resulted due to dispersal processes. Human agency, climate and environment were certainly among the principal factors driving population mobility. Explanatory models require data, indicating to which extent single events of migration and dispersal were either supported or limited by environmental conditions in the source areas, corridors and target areas of population movements such as the primary dispersal of Homo sapiens from Africa to Eurasia.

The CRC 806 concentrates on the dispersal of Modern Man from Africa and the permanent establishment of H. sapiens in Central Europe ( Fig. 1). The time span of investigation comprises the last 190,000 years, thus including the second-last glacial (Marine Isotope Stage, MIS 6), the last interglacial-glacial cycle (MIS 5 to 2) and the Holocene (MIS 1).

• corridors
• homo sapiens sapiens
• late pleistocene
• our way to europe
• population dynamics

Resources

• Richter_Melles_Schäbitz_2012_Temporal_Spatial_Corridors_Sapiens_LatePleisto_EarlyHolo.pdf
• httpwww.sciencedirect.comsciencearticlepiiS1040618212004235

Bibliography

Richter, J., Melles, M., Schäbitz, F. (2012): Temporal and spatial corridors of Homo sapiens sapiens population dynamics during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. In: Quaternary International, 274, 2012, 1-4