The role of the Eastern Mediterranean in human evolution: recent results from Greece

The Eastern Mediterranean lies directly on the principal migration route for human groups dispersing across Africa, Europe, and Asia. It also encompasses the Balkans, where fauna and flora, as well as hominin populations, are thought to have persisted through glacial periods. Based on this geographic position, the region's palaeoanthropological record would be expected to be among the longest and most continuous, but also the most highly diverse, reflecting complex processes of late survivals, new arrivals, and, potentially, contact between different lineages. While the record from the Near East meets these expectations, little evidence exists to support them in the northern part of the Easter Mediterranean. Here I present new evidence from our recent work in Greece, both in the laboratory and in the field. These new data highlight the regions’ importance as both dispersal corridor and glacial refugium for human populations in the Pleistocene. Results strongly suggest that the paucity of currently available data is due to lack of research, and highlight the potential of the record to shed further light on the complex processes underlying human evolution and dispersals.