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The Role of the Central Balkans in the Peopling of Europe: Paleoanthropological Evidence

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Paleoanthropology of the Balkans and Anatolia

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

The paucity of fossil human remains from the Central Balkans represents a very serious lacuna in our understanding of human evolution in the Pleistocene of Europe, which is—as a result—strongly influenced by the material from the better researched parts of the continent further to the west of the Balkans. The scant fossil record from the Central Balkans suffers from a lack of archaeological/geological context, and with the exception of the Balanica hominin (BH-1) has no associated chronological data. In this chapter, I present all of the purported Pleistocene specimens currently known from the area and discuss their possible affinities.

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to Dušan Mihailović who asked me to join his team in Balanica, to Predrag Radović for editing tables and graphs; to Dejana Nikitović, Dušan Mihailović and Josh Lindal who commented on the first draft; to Katerina Harvati, participants at the PaGE conference and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Funding was provided by an NSERC grant (371077-2010).

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, 515 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3B 2E9

    Mirjana Roksandic

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  1. Mirjana Roksandic
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Correspondence to Mirjana Roksandic .

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  1. Paleoanthropology, Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Katerina Harvati

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Mirjana Roksandic

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Roksandic, M. (2016). The Role of the Central Balkans in the Peopling of Europe: Paleoanthropological Evidence. In: Harvati, K., Roksandic, M. (eds) Paleoanthropology of the Balkans and Anatolia. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0874-4_2

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