Early Human Adaptations in Megalopolis

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou, since 9/2023
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 463225251

Our understanding of the human settlement of Europe has shifted dramatically over the last three decades through a series of startling discoveries. However, the timing and origin of the earliest settlement, the mode of the occupation (continuity vs discontinuity) and the behaviours/adaptations that enabled it are still unclear. The record from South-East Europe is critical in addressing these questions. This region lies on a major dispersal route between Africa, Western Asia and Europe, and is therefore a logical starting point for investigating dispersals to/from the European continent. It is also considered a major Southern European glacial refugium. Nevertheless, its paleoanthropology remains largely unexplored and little is known about this critical time period. The Megalopolis basin (Central Peloponnese, S. Greece) offers a unique opportunity to diachronically investigate human activity from stratified contexts in this neglected region. The basin hosted a Pleistocene paleolake and its stratigraphic sequence comprises lacustrine deposits alternating with lignite seams, nowadays extracted in large open-cast mines, which have exposed fossiliferous deposits dating to ca. 900-150 ka BP. This time span covers nearly the entire Middle Pleistocene and therefore encompasses critical biocultural changes in the evolution of the human lineage, as well as the first substantial peopling of Europe. Five new sites have been located thus far during the PIs' previous work in the basin, yielding both lithic and fossil faunal material from stratified, well-preserved and datable contexts, and spanning the basin’s long stratigraphic sequence: Choremi 3 (dated to ca. 260 ka); Marathousa 1 (an elephant butchering site dated to between 500-400 ka); Marathousa 2 (approximately same stratigraphic position as Marathousa 1); Kyparissia 4 (currently estimated to date to between 700-600 ka based on its stratigraphic position in the basin); and Tripotamos 4 (currently estimated to date to 300-200 ka). The project proposed here will analyze the faunal and cultural material collected from the five Megalopolis sites, with the aim to reconstruct hominin behaviour and adaptation diachronically. The faunal analysis will focus on taxonomic identification, description and comparative analysis of several partial skeletons and other faunal remains, as well as their taphonomic analysis, with emphasis on anthropogenic surface modifications. The cultural analysis will involve all lithic and bone artifacts, as well as potential wooden artifacts. It will focus on the description and analysis of the remains using a combination of the châine operatoire approach and a behaviorally-oriented approach; as well as use-wear and residue analysis of the cultural material. Results will shed light on human adaptation in this crucial, yet unexplored, temporal and geographic context against the backdrop of changing environmental conditions of the Middle Pleistocene glacial cycles.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Vangelis Tourloukis, Ph.D., until 8/2023