What do we know about the earliest tool-making hominins? Over the last decade, scientific knowledge has increased, and hominin sites have been found in Africa and China, half a million years earlier than previously believed. A new research approach based on biogeography and adaptive behaviours is needed to understand the complex human colonisation processes across the Old World. The EU-funded BICAEHFID project will create a global synthesis of early human movement dynamics based on the comparison of the world’s longest timeline of early archaeological sites. By using available datasets, the project aims to understand the alternative evolutionary course followed by hominins sharing a common biological and cultural background who took routes with different climatic and biogeographic conditions.

ERC-2018-ADG