A Brief history of the settlement of Europe and its surroundings.
Venus figurines in context.
Part 1-3
Africa, about 300,000 years ago. The first individuals, now classified as anatomically modern humans (AMH), as the species Homo sapiens, evolved there.
Modern humans in Africa
The base of Homo sapiens remained in Africa for the next 230,000 years, with smaller groups of modern humans occasionally venturing to both closer and more distant places, including Europe, but their settlements did not last.
Archaic humans in Europe and Asia
At that time, the western part of Eurasia, the landmass comprising Europe and Asia, was home to archaic humans, referred to as Neanderthals. The eastern part of Eurasia (and further southeast) was home to another archaic human species named Denisovan (after Denisova Cave in the Altai region of southern Siberia). Their occurrence overlapped somewhere in between.
Modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans share a common ancestor. The ancestors of modern humans split from the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Denisovans, according to various estimates, about 600,000 to 400,000 years ago. Neanderthals split from Denisovans shortly afterwards.
Modern humans colonize Europe
And the time came when modern humans started arriving in Europe in greater numbers. Their first wave that came to Central Europe about 45,000 years ago did not settle down permanently, and their descendants did not survive. One of their members was a woman whose skull was found in the Prošek Dome of the Koněprusy Caves in the Bohemian Karst and which was named Zlatý kůň (Golden Horse) (after the hill in which the Koněprusy Caves are located). Reconstruction of her appearance can be found at https://konepruske.caves.cz/aktuality/zene-ktera-zila-pred-45-tisici-lety-na-zlatem-koni-u-koneprus-dali-vedci-tvar
Then, about 43,000 years ago, the permanent settlement of Europe by modern humans began. And there began the era of creating female statuettes – prehistoric Venus figurines.
However, before modern humans settled permanently in Europe, these hunter-gatherers had spent about 20,000 to 30,000 years adapting to non-African conditions somewhere in the Persian Plateau, or perhaps on the Arabian Peninsula. In Europe and on their journey there, they encountered Neanderthals and sometimes interbred with them. The disadvantage of Neanderthals was that they tended to live in small, isolated groups, while the arriving modern humans tended to create a wide network of interpersonal relationships spreading over a large area. Therefore, they were much more resistant to all adversities of their lives.
The first great cultures of modern humans in Europe and the golden age of Venuses
The first two major cultures of modern humans, which were widespread throughout Europe, known as the Aurignacian and the Gravettian (named after archaeological sites in France), lasted about 16,000 years. The Gravettian culture was the golden age of the creation of Venus figurines. At the end of this period, however, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) started to approach.
The Last Glacial Maximum
The cooling peaked between 25,000 and 18,000 years ago and brought such an extent of glaciation and harsh winter conditions that Europeans of that time had to retreat to warmer peripheral areas in order to survive. At that time, average annual temperatures in Central Europe were about 15°C lower than in modern times. Since then, such a cold period has not occurred in Europe. The culture of hunters and gatherers of that time ceased to be pan-European, the connection between the western and eastern parts of Europe was interrupted for a long time, and Europe experienced an overall population decline.
The end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the return of humans to Central Europe
However, even during the LGM, humans in Europe survived and after the glacier retreated, they began to return to the previously abandoned places and their population gradually increased. Their new culture is known as the Magdalenian. They also created Venus figurines, but in a completely different style than the people before them, the people of the Aurignacian and the Gravettian cultures.
Climate warming and stabilization
After a significant climate warming that marked the end of the last Ice Age, something happened that humans had never experienced in its entire previous existence. Not only did it get warmer, but the climate, which was previously characterized by great instability, with periods of sharp warming and subsequent strong cooling, suddenly stabilized. The change was so significant that the period from the beginning of this stabilization to the present was designated as a new geological period, a new epoch, called the Holocene. The Holocene began 11,700 years ago and continues to this day.
The advent of agriculture
The warming and subsequent moderation of temperature fluctuations enabled something that had not been possible before during the Ice Ages: the emergence and long-term development of agriculture. If it weren't for this warming and the subsequent long-term climate stability, we would still be hunters and gatherers because we would have no other way to make a living.
However, with climate change, agriculture became possible and, with human ingenuity, soon became a reality. After the beginning of the Holocene, agriculture appeared independently in different parts of the planet. The Holocene thus marked not only a new geological epoch, but also the beginning of a new period of human cultures, the Neolithic cultures. The Neolithic period represents the period from the emergence of agriculture to the beginning of the use of metals that followed it.
Farmers from Southwest Asia, from what is now Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey, also referred to as Asia Minor), played a crucial role in the course of events in Europe. This was the area from where agriculture (more precisely, farmers) came to Europe. The development of agriculture in Southwest Asia resulted in a growth in the local population that then sought additional living space and set off (also) for Europe.
Farmers from Asia in Europe
Farmers from Anatolia penetrated into Europe via two main routes. One was land-based across the Balkan Peninsula and further to the northwest, the other Mediterranean route that led along the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Anatolian farmers reached the area to the north of the Alps about 7,500 years ago
People of the Yamnaya culture: from the eastern steppes to Central Europe and beyond
But it wasn't over yet. About 5,300 years ago, a culture called the Yamnaya formed in the east, on the steppes to the north of the Caspian and Black Seas. The people of this culture adopted the use of animals for milk from people living to the south of the Caucasus. They first bred sheep, later goats and cows, and lived as nomadic herders. The vast steppes and the possibility to move around provided their livestock with plenty of food. They also began to use one new invention, which was carts, mostly pulled by oxen. These people originated from the mixing of two groups: Caucasian hunter-gatherers and Eastern hunter-gatherers. Eastern hunters and gatherers were descendants of people living in an area from eastern Siberia through all of Eastern Europe as far as Central Europe. The mammoth hunters of Central Europe were also their distant relatives.
Eventually, the people of the Yamnaya culture found their steppes too small, so they set out with their wagons and cattle to the west and east. They reached Central Europe about 4,900 years ago. The first local culture associated with them is called the Corded Ware culture. Since then, all cultures of Central Europe have carried their genetic trace. Almost all Europeans carry this trace, because the herders from the eastern steppes soon made it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
So, what are we today?
And this is how we came to be here. We are, in varying proportions, a mixture of Western and Eastern hunter-gatherers, farmers from Anatolia and nomadic herders from the eastern steppes, who themselves are a mixture of Caucasian hunter-gatherers and Eastern hunter-gatherers, tracing their ancestry back to the Ancient North Euroasians (ANE).
This genetic composition of Europeans has not changed much in subsequent times and continues to this day.
As you can see, before we came to be here, our ancestors had been splitting and reuniting, travelling thousands and thousands of kilometres, facing extreme climates and often very difficult natural conditions. After spending most of their existence as hunters and gatherers, the climate warming and stabilization eventually brought about agriculture, a great increase in populations and subsequent necessity of the coexistence of an unprecedented number of people. All this enabled existence of civilizations, their heydays, but also their collapses, wars and wide-scale intentional destructions.
All of these adventures have influenced us to a greater or lesser extent and can hold clues who we really are and why.
Following part: 2-1 Trends in human evolution that shaped us.
Previous part: 1-2 From apes to humans. Archaic humans, modern humans, Adams and Eves.
1.3 Literature
1.
Natasha Ishak:
Scientists Reveal What Our Denisovan Ancestors Looked Like 75,000 Years Ago. https://allthatsinteresting.com/denisovan-facial-reconstruction
2.
Ludovic Slimak et al:
Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France
Science Advances 9 Feb 2022 Vol 8, Issue 6
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj9496
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj9496
3.
Vallini, L., Zampieri, C., Shoaee, M.J. et al.:
The Persian plateau served as hub for Homo sapiens after the main out of Africa dispersal.
Nature Communications 15, 1882 (2024).
Published25 March 2024
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46161-7
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46161-7
4.
Yaping Shao, Heiko Limberg, Konstantin Klein, Christian Wegener, Isabell Schmidt, Gerd-Christian Weniger, Andreas Hense, Masoud Rostami:
Human-existence probability of the Aurignacian techno-complex under extreme climate conditions.
Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 263, 1 July 2021, 106995
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027737912100202X
5.
Mylopotamitaki, D., Weiss, M., Fewlass, H. et al.:
Homo sapiens reached the higher latitudes of Europe by 45,000 years ago.
Nature 626, 341–346 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7
Published31 January 2024
Issue Date08 February 2024
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06923-7
6.
Hannes Rathmann et al.:
Human population dynamics in Upper Paleolithic Europe inferred from fossil dental phenotypes.
Science Advances 10,eadn8129 (2024) .DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adn8129
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn8129
7.
Scott, A., Reinhold, S., Hermes, T. et al.
Emergence and intensification of dairying in the Caucasus and Eurasian steppes.
Nat Ecol Evol 6, 813–822 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01701-6
Issue Date June 2022
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01701-6
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01701-6
8.
Allentoft, M.E., Sikora, M., Fischer, A. et al. :
100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark.
Nature 625, 329–337 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06862-3
Published10 January 2024
Issue Date 11 January 2024
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06862-3