The main objective of the project is to acquire novel data about the character of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene human occupation of the "Danube corridor" assumed to be one of the main axis for hominin dispersals throughout early prehistory -- from the dispersal of modern humans to the arrival of agriculture. This will be accomplished by investigating the karstic region of the Danube Gorges in the north-central Balkans characterized by numerous caves and rockshelters as key repositories of human occupation histories throughout the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. The region is also uniquely dotted by more than a dozen open-air Early Holocene Mesolithic forager sites along the banks of the Danube in present-day Romania and Serbia. A recently revised chronology for the Upper Danube region confirms previous suggestions that the "Danube corridor" played an important role as one of the main axis for the dispersal of Homo sapiens. Oase Cave modern human fossils discovered in the immediate hinterland area of the Danube Gorges in Romania have been directly AMS-dated to c. 42,500--38,500 cal BP. Within the same region, recent research led by the PI brought to light occupation deposits with tools attributable to Protoaurignacian at TT Cave. These deposits are dated to c. 41--37,000 cal BP and are broadly contemporaneous with the human remains from Oase Cave. At another site, Dubocka-Kozja Cave, situated in the immediate hinterland of the Danube Gorges, the PI excavated abundant flint tools and debitage characterized as a Levallois-derived Late Mousterian currently dated to c. 40,500--37,000 cal BC, also containing a younger horizon dating to the Gravettian period, c. 30,000 cal BP. The character of Early Holocene forager occupation in the same region will be investigated at the Mesolithic site of Vlasac (c. 11500--8000 cal BC) where, during the 2019 and 2020 excavations led by the PI, a unique burial association of articulated skeletons of a human and a pig was found.
The importance of the Danube River corridor as a route for hominin dispersal and zone of high resource productivity is emerging through new discoveries and the re-evaluation of previous Palaeolithic and Mesolithic finds in the wider catchment of the southern Carpathian Basin in Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria. The region's importance in later prehistoric periods is already well established by the rich cultural record of terminal Pleistocene-early Holocene Mesolithic forager cultures in the Danube Gorges. Despite years of minimal Palaeolithic research in the Lower Danube Basin, new discoveries are beginning to unlock the potential of this catchment as a hotspot of Palaeolithic as well as Mesolithic archaeology that will shed light on cultural innovation and adaptations of Pleistocene and Holocene foragers. This project aims to explore the exciting research potential of the region, tapping a potentially rich and significant archaeological resource. The Danube Gorges are dominated by karstic terrain containing numerous caves and rockshelters. Landscape features such as these commonly preserve both cultural remains, as they have been favored by hominins seeking shelter for much of the Quaternary, and sediments that can provide important palaeoenvironmental data. This is a unique research initiative of this sort in the region.
Another innovative aspect of this project is its regional focus on the organization and adaptations of forager groups in the long-term perspective -- from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene. Very often, research projects are focused on either of the two periods rather than on long-term consequences of forager settlement in a single region. Hence our aim is to better understand changes in forager adaptational strategies when faced by major climatic and environmental changes, such as various stadial and interstadial conditions throughout the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, including the impact of past volcanic eruptions, such as CI-Y5, c. 39 kya BP, Last Glacial Maximum, Bølling-Allerød warming, Younger Dryas cooling, Early Holocene warming up to the impact of 8.2 cal BP event prior to the arrival of the earliest Neolithic groups.
Apart from a suite of the state-of-the-art methodologies being applied in this project, we could also single out some cutting-edge approaches, in particular
(a) The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for landscape mapping is a more affordable way than LIDAR in order to provide high-resolution landscape data for creating Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and further research and analysis;
(b) ZooMS peptide finger-printing of bone collagen as an effective way of both screening for the presence of undetected human remains in underutilized, unidentifiable portions of the faunal assemblages and a way of checking possible biases inherent in zooarchaeological analyses of species composition of highly fragmented bone assemblages. For instance, it helps in a major way to recognize taxa with cutmarks and thus provides important data for understanding the utilization and manipulation of animal carcasses;
(c) Isotope studies and U/Th dating of speleothems should provide much-needed climatic proxies for this under-investigated region of Europe;
(d) High-resolution strontium isotope studies, and cementochronology of human and animal teeth that will add previously inaccessible information on seasonal patterns of mobility and aggregation for human and animal communities at different times.
(e) Cryptotephra and aDNA analyses of cave sediments that will allow for the identification of volcanic eruptions as unique chronostratigraphic markers and presence of hominin taxa respectively.
This research project will contribute towards establishing a more robust record for diachronic changes in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic occupation of the Danube Gorges region, its hinterlands, and southeastern Europe as a whole. The proposed work has significant potential to improve our understanding of the role of the Danube fluvial "corridor" in the spread of modern humans by defining the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition at a micro-regional level and by characterizing the nature of both the Late Middle Palaeolithic and Initial/Early Upper Palaeolithic settlement. At a broader level, the project addresses a number of questions with wider relevance pertinent to the study of early prehistory, such as those related to the emergence of behavioral modernity and correct taxon attribution of cognitive, symbolic, and social novelties we have come to associate with the Upper Palaeolithic developments in Europe, as well as resilience of prehistoric foragers when faced with major climatic and environmental changes. On a more general level, this research will contribute to understanding the role of the Lower Danube as a major communication corridor in the transmission of people as well as cognitive, cultural, and social novelties.