Environmental factors in human evolution and dispersals in the Upper Pleistocene of the western Mediterranean

2. Key Issues

   1. Introduction and underlying rationale
   2. Key Issues
   3. Specific Objectives
   4. People
   5. Moroccan Sites
   6. Gibraltar Sites
   7. Map of Sites
   8. Summary of Sites
   9. References

Local evolution and dispersal

Archaic Homo sapiens is well attested at Jebel Irhoud but its hypothesised replacement first by Aterian and then by Taforalt and Afalou (Algeria) populations remains largely conjectural as does the tempo and mode of replacement.

Cultural associations and transitions

Three of the known major cultural sub-divisions in Morocco: Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian); Aterian; and Upper Palaeolithic (Iberomaurusian) appear to correlate with distinctive human groups. Middle Palaeolithic levels have been linked to archaic Homo sapiens and the Iberomaurusian to modern Homo sapiens. However the type of human fossils associated with the Aterian remains enigmatic. The ages of these industries, the transitions and the environmental background to such changes are also unclear.

Human-environment relationships

Some have linked the origins of the Aterian in Morocco to a wetter climatic phase (c. 50-40 ka BP)(Debenath et al. 1986), but this has recently been challenged by other models concerning its earlier appearance in the eastern Sahara (Cremaschi et al. 1998). The apparently sudden replacement of the Aterian by the Iberomaurusian has been seen as coinciding with a climatically drier phase at c. 20 ka BP. These ideas need fuller testing against proxy records.

Interaction between human populations

Archaic humans are well-attested on both sides of the Gibraltar Strait. Both sides also show broadly comparable Middle to Upper Palaeolithic cultural transitions and occupation by anatomically modern Homo sapiens. But the question whether the Strait was a crossing point e.g. for archaic or modern humans into Iberia, and/or, for Neanderthals into Morocco, or whether it was a barrier, remains completely open and unresolved. Although it is conventionally accepted that Upper Palaeolithic modern humans in Iberia arrived from the north, the latest thinking suggests a further African migration of moderns at some time in the Upper Palaeolithic (e.g. Straus 2001). This idea requires fuller scrutiny and testing. Of critical importance to this question is whether the Iberomaurusian pre-dates the Italian (Sicilian) and Iberian Upper Palaeolithic, and therefore if it is more likely to be of entirely local, North African origin.