Paleoecology/paleoclimate of the Levant and its impact on the spread of modern humans from Africa to Europe

Which routes did Homo sapiens take when spreading from Africa to Eurasia? The climatic conditions changed and with them the living conditions. Over the past twelve years, a research team has deciphered the complex interplay of cultural innovations, mobility and environmental changes funded by the German Research Foundation (Collaborative Research Center 806 "Our Way to Europe"). Our working group in Bonn specifically investigated when and where migration corridors or barriers existed  from a paleoecological and paleoclimatological point of view. It turned out that the Levant, as the only permanent land bridge between Africa and Eurasia during the Quaternary, was the key region as a migration corridor for modern humans. Cores from the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project (ICDP) were investigated, in which the environmental and climate history of the last 200 ka is excellently preserved and documented. In particular, pollen analysis allows changes in vegetation cover to be identified and environmental and climatic conditions to be reconstructed. These data illustrate that the Levant could only have served as a corridor when, under more favorable conditions, for example, neither deserts nor dense forests impeded the spread of modern humans.