Harvati’s previous ERC-funded projects focused on Southeastern Europe and specifically on Greece. The region played a central role in human migration and survival during the Ice Ages. “The climate and environment would have been very friendly, not only to plants and animals but also to human populations,” she explains.
At the same time, Southeastern Europe is part of a corridor for migration between Europe, the Near East and Africa, as well as Asia, making it an important stop on any migration path, according to Harvati. Yet she says this significance went unrecognized for many years: “We have very little data. The paradox here is that until recently, and partly because of historical research biases, a very important biogeographical region at the crossroads of three continents remained largely unexplored in terms of Palaeolithic archaeology and human evolution.”
The researcher’s projects have focused on very early prehistory, revisiting existing collections of early human remains that may have been neglected in the past, and incorporating them into a larger comparative framework. While re-examining some fossil finds from southern Greece, Harvati and her team made a sensational discovery – that Homo sapiens had been present in Europe more than 210,000 years ago. It challenged the belief that Neanderthals were the only human species in Europe at that time. The study was published in the scientific journal Nature, giving rise to the FIRST STEPS project.
The discovery prompted the team to wonder what else had been missed, as findings may have been overlooked because they were at odds with current orthodoxy. “We wondered if we were missing evidence because we had a completely different framework into which it didn’t fit,” says Harvati. In the search for more evidence, the team started to carry out systematic fieldwork at Palaeolithic sites in Greece, Bosnia and Italy. “Our collaborations in the central Balkans and Italy now enable us to make comparisons across a broader region,” Harvati explains.