Faunal assemblages and biomes at the anthropological frontier around 50-40 ka BP (E08*)

• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology ; Physical Geography
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 57444011

The E8 project centres on the question whether faunal assemblages and biomes differed between late Neanderthals and modern human. In order to do so 30 Middle Palaeolithic sites with faunal assemblages from Central Europe will be dated by at least two radiometric dating methods each obtaining a high-resolution signal of local and regional biome composition between 50-40 ka calBP. Geochronological, palaefaunal and palynological results will be integrated in biome reconstruction. Deviating biome patterns may have contributed to the successful dispersal of Homo sapiens and may have facilitated the replacement of late Neanderthals.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 806: Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary
• Applicant Institution: Universität zu Köln
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Thomas Litt; Professor Dr. Jürgen Richter