TY - JOUR
T1 - Early hominins in Europe
T2 - The Galerian migration hypothesis
AU - Muttoni, Giovanni
AU - Scardia, Giancarlo
AU - Kent, Dennis V.
N1 - Funding Information:
GM would like to thank the Rector of the University of Milan for financial support (Fondo Scavi Archeologici 2015). DVK would like to thank Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for support of the Paleomagnetics Lab and the Board of Governors Professorship of Rutgers University for financial support. LDEO Contribution #0000.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/1/15
Y1 - 2018/1/15
N2 - Our updated review of sites bearing hominin remains and/or tools from Europe, including new findings from the Balkans, still indicates that the only compelling evidence of main hominin presence in these regions was only since ∼0.9 million years ago (Ma), bracketed by the end of the Jaramillo geomagnetic polarity subchron (0.99 Ma) and the Brunhes-Matuyama polarity chron boundary (0.78 Ma). This time window straddled the late Early Pleistocene climate transition (EPT) at the onset of enhanced glacial/interglacial activity that reverberated worldwide. Europe may have become initially populated during the EPT when, possibly for the first time in the Pleistocene, vast and exploitable ecosystems were generated along the eustatically emergent Po-Danube terrestrial conduit. These newly formed settings, characterized by stable terrestrial lowlands with open grasslands and reduced woody cover especially during glacial/interglacial transitions, are regarded as optimal ecosystems for several large Galerian immigrant mammals such as African and Asian megaherbivores, possibly linked with hominins in a common food web, to expand into en route to Europe. The question of when hominins first arrived in Europe thus places the issue in the context of changes in climate, paleogeography and faunal associations as potential environmental drivers and controlling agents in a specific time frame, a key feature of the Galerian migration hypothesis.
AB - Our updated review of sites bearing hominin remains and/or tools from Europe, including new findings from the Balkans, still indicates that the only compelling evidence of main hominin presence in these regions was only since ∼0.9 million years ago (Ma), bracketed by the end of the Jaramillo geomagnetic polarity subchron (0.99 Ma) and the Brunhes-Matuyama polarity chron boundary (0.78 Ma). This time window straddled the late Early Pleistocene climate transition (EPT) at the onset of enhanced glacial/interglacial activity that reverberated worldwide. Europe may have become initially populated during the EPT when, possibly for the first time in the Pleistocene, vast and exploitable ecosystems were generated along the eustatically emergent Po-Danube terrestrial conduit. These newly formed settings, characterized by stable terrestrial lowlands with open grasslands and reduced woody cover especially during glacial/interglacial transitions, are regarded as optimal ecosystems for several large Galerian immigrant mammals such as African and Asian megaherbivores, possibly linked with hominins in a common food web, to expand into en route to Europe. The question of when hominins first arrived in Europe thus places the issue in the context of changes in climate, paleogeography and faunal associations as potential environmental drivers and controlling agents in a specific time frame, a key feature of the Galerian migration hypothesis.
KW - Early Pleistocene
KW - Europe
KW - Galerian mammals
KW - Hominins
KW - Migrations
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U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.10.031
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.10.031
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85034758901
VL - 180
SP - 1
EP - 29
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
SN - 0277-3791
ER -