Moving conceptually from the "Muddle in the Middle" to "Solving the Chibanian Puzzle"

Intervenante : Mirjana Roksandic, Université de Winnipeg, Canada

Titre : Moving conceptually from the "Muddle in the Middle" to "Solving the Chibanian Puzzle"

Résumé :

It could be said that the "Muddle in the Middle" (Pleistocene) was created by the persistent "Neanderthal bias," combined with the lack of data on the pattern of hominin variation outside Europe, and our collective concentration on the Late Pleistocene. With invigorated research and more fossil individuals uncovered from underrepresented areas, better dating techniques and the insights from aDNA and palaeo-proteoms, the rather simple picture of chronospecies moving in a progression towards Homo sapiens is no longer tenable. I will discuss the fossil record from the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the context of  a more complex picture of human evolution and some questions that it made us pursue. I will concentrate on the Chibanian as the key period for the big brained hominins.