Objectives

The first evidence of European colonisation by humans is at Dmanisi at ~1.8 Ma (Vekua et al., 2002; Carotenuto et al., 2016), with sites in southern Europe (Spain, Italy) proposed to date from ~1.7 – 1.2 Ma (Carbonell et al., 2008; Arzarello et al., 2009; Toro-Moyano et al., 2013). The French sites of Lézignan-la-Cèbe (~1.57 Ma; Crochet et al., 2009) and Pont-de-Lavaud (~1.1 Ma; Despriée et al., 2010) would fit with these early dates. However, the timings of the spread of humans into Europe is hotly debated, with the “Post-Jaramillo follow-the-herd” hypothesis, proposing that the first presence of hominins in southern Europe did not occur before the Jaramillo subchron ~0.99 Ma, with aridification during marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 22 (~0.87 Ma) triggering migration pulses of large mammals (e.g. Muttoni et al., 2013; 2015). Questions on the chronology of the earliest European material, and hence whether the early hominin occupation of Europe was affected by environmental rather than cultural factors (e.g. Agusti et al., 2015) will be addressed through EQuaTe by constraining the ages of the critical mammal assemblage zones at key sites.

Significant climatic changes would have affected the hominin populations who colonized northern Europe during the Early-Mid Pleistocene, with impacts on the vegetation and prey communities. Intriguing questions arise from the diverse record: are differences in tool technologies (e.g. Ashton et al., 2016) telling us about use, technical evolution, source material, populations or even species differences? Are the distinctive core-&-flake industries of northern Europe temporally discrete? What is the chronology for the Mode 2 technocomplex’s spread throughout Europe (Mosquera et al., 2015; de Lombera-Hermida et al., 2015)? Does the presence of Acheulean technology represent episodic arrivals of new hominins or local innovation of the technology (Voinchet et al., 2015)? Is there evidence for discontinuity of populations (antecessor - heidelbergensis) that can be linked to the climatically disruptive period ~0.81 Ma (MIS 18-16) (e.g. Bermúdez de Castro et al., 2016)? EQuaTe will enable these hypotheses to be tested between sites, and hence improve the overarching understanding of the population dynamics.

The Middle Palaeolithic is associated with a wealth of palaeoenvironmental data across northern Europe. Biomolecular studies (e.g. Meyer et al., 2013; Slon et al., 2017, 2018) show that an increasingly complex mix of hominins could have been present in Europe (Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, Denisovan ancestors?), but which species do these deposits record? Can the contemporaneity of sites correlated on the basis of lithic typology (Bridgland & White, 2014; White et al., 2018) be demonstrated? Does the Levallois technique first appear suddenly across Europe, or is it time-transgressive (Hérrisson et al., 2016)? Is the paucity of hominins in central and eastern Europe in MIS 7 & 5e (Richter, 2016) a dating issue or the reality?

IcPD and TL biomineral dating can test the contemporaneity of distinctive archaeological developments and track the dispersal of human populations, enabling hypotheses to be tested about tool types, versus different groups, populations, species, etc.