Presentation of the cross-disciplinary project

In TRACKS AND FOOTPRINTS, we will (i) explore, under the overarching theoretical umbrella of niche construction, in what way and how humans evolved both as a species, as populations, and as historically contingent biocultural communities (‘societies’ or ‘). By discussing and developing methods designed to consider biology (via fossil or genomic proxies) and culture (via archaeological or anthropological proxies) together under a single methodological umbrella, we will interrogate the extent to which biological and cultural evolution proceeded in parallel. Once these tracks are charted, we will (ii) interrogate the specific role of climatic and environmental boundary conditions in human behavioural and biocultural evolution. The environment and its spatiotemporal fluctuations exert pressures on human populations, enable and constrain demography, life history pacing and strategies, economies, and social networks. Considering the dramatic increase in our knowledge of past climates and environments in recent decades, we investigate how climatic and environmental change have conditioned human biocultural history and how human behaviour has, in turn, affected the environment and climate to such an extent that they become part of the constructed niche itself.