information:extraction, structural:scholar_edition
Initial Upper Palaeolithic

When early modern humans (Homo sapiens) migrated onto the European continent, they interacted with the indigenous Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) which had already inhabited Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. In 2019, Greek palaeoanthropologist Katerina Harvati and colleagues argued that two 210,000 year old skulls from Apidima Cave, Greece, represent modern humans rather than Neanderthals – indicating these populations have an unexpectedly deep history – but this was disputed in 2020 by French paleoanthropologist Marie-Antoinette de Lumley and colleagues. About 60,000 years ago, marine isotope stage 3 began, characterised by oscillating climatic patterns, causing sudden retreat and recolonisation phases in vegetation, fluctuating between forestland and open steppeland.

The earliest indication of Upper Palaeolithic modern human migration into Europe is a series of modern human teeth with Neronian industry stone tools found at Mandrin Cave, Malataverne in France, dated in 2022 to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago. The Neronian is one of the many industries associated with modern humans classed as transitional between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Beyond this there is the Balkan Bohunician industry beginning 48,000 years ago, likely deriving from the Levantine Emiran industry; the remains found in the cave Ilsenhöhle in Ranis, Germany, up to 47,500 years old; and the next-oldest fossils date to roughly 44,000 years ago in Bulgaria, Italy, and Britain. It is unclear, while migrating westward, if they followed the Danube or went along the Mediterranean coast. Beginning about 45,000 years ago, the Proto-Aurignacian culture, the first widely recognised European Upper Palaeolithic culture, spread out across Europe, probably descending from the Near-Eastern Ahmarian culture.