ANR FOOD-RE

The aim of FOOD-RE is :

. to reconstruct the environmental (ecosystem, geosystem), climatic and economic (potential food resources) conditions of the first hominins since they were "out of Africa".

. to identify the environmental factors behind the migratory dynamics of hominin and large herbivore populations over the last 3 Ma: climatic variability, herbivory, geodynamics (volcanism), fires and erosive processes.

FOOD-RE is based on the exceptional discovery of proto-cereal pollen dating back 2.3 Ma at Acigol, which calls into question the beginning of cereal cultivation in the Neolithic period.

The methodology is interdisciplinary (environmental sciences, life sciences and humanities) and retrospective. It is based on multiproxy data acquisition and modelling. We will be working on long, continuous natural archives covering almost the entire Quaternary in the eastern and western Mediterranean.