This commission focuses on the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age, spanning Africa, Europe, and Asia during the period spanning roughly 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. Our aim is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among specialists to build a comprehensive picture of this pivotal era in human evolution, encouraging research, publications, and workshops.
The focus of the commission's work is on exploring and understand the technological innovations, subsistence strategies, settlement patterns, environmental and ecological adaptations as well as the possible interactions between different hominin species (Neanderthals, Denisovians, Homo sapiens), to advance the understanding of human behaviors and ecological adaptations during the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age.
The commission unites experts in different disciplines, drawing on fieldwork from key archaeological sites currently under excavation in different geographic areas. Focusing on a crucial phase in human evolution, it represents an ideal forum in which to generate and integrate research ideas cutting across various disciplines.
The Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age commission aims to promote and coordinate research on this pivotal period in human prehistory, facilitating interregional collaboration and organizing focused meetings between UISPP Congresses. The commission is dedicated to advancing relevant initiatives, such as the organization of collaborative research efforts, workshops, seminars, and other activities that contribute to the study and dissemination of knowledge related to Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age sites.
Participation in the work of the commission is open to all researchers interested in these topics, through membership of UISPP, and encourages collaboration and the sharing of initiatives with all who wish to contribute and work together.
