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Early Hominids in the Balkans

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Balkan Biodiversity

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce the human factor, in the shape of our Palaeolithic past, into the study of Balkan biodiversity and to identify those parts of the story of Pleistocene hominids in the Balkans that are most relevant to this study. The paper’s temporal perspective will thus be a long one, since this period encompassed many thousands of years, witnessing the alternation of cold and warm stages and the geographic restriction and expansion of various plant and animal populations. Against this periodically changing Ice Age background there took place the arrival of ancient hominids in the Balkans, the extinction of certain species and the arrival and subsequent expansion of our species, Homo sapiens through even the most remote of upland regions, formerly inaccessible. The Balkan Peninsula, the south-eastern entrance to Europe, is a region of critical concern in the process of reconstructing ancient European history. As one of the many pieces in the European hominid mosaic, the Balkan record will be discussed here in conjunction with the major issues of early European prehistory.

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  1. Nena Galanidou
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Hull, UK

    Huw I. Griffiths

  2. Science and Research Centre Koper, University of Primorska, Slovenia

    Boris Kryštufek

  3. Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Boris Kryštufek

  4. Department of Geography, University of Hull, UK

    Jane M. Reed

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Galanidou, N. (2004). Early Hominids in the Balkans. In: Griffiths, H.I., Kryštufek, B., Reed, J.M. (eds) Balkan Biodiversity. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2854-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2854-0_9

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