ERC Grant Awarded to Groundbreaking Palaeoenvironmental Research Project

The five-year project, titled Palaeoenvironments of Human Behavioural Evolution in Africa (PIONEER), will transform our understanding of how environmental factors shaped the evolution of behavioural complexity in early Homo sapiens.

Margit Simon, a climate researcher at NORCE, will lead this transformative study on human behavioural evolution. The project brings together a global team of experts in archaeology, palaeoclimatology, geochemistry, and computational modelling. Collaborators include renowned specialists from institutions across South Africa, Europe, South Korea and the United States.

Simon is also affiliated with the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, where NORCE is one of the partner institutions.

The period between 125,000 and 50,000 years ago marks a transformative chapter in human history. During this time, Homo sapiens in Africa began exhibiting complex behaviours that define modern humanity, such as symbolic thinking, personal ornamentation, and advanced tool-making.

Yet the drivers behind these transformations remain debated. The PIONEER project seeks to address this by testing whether climate variability in North and South Africa influenced cultural innovations during this time.

The Challenge

Understanding how climate influenced the emergence of cultural complexity has long eluded researchers. The theoretical models and interpretations developed to understand the relationship between the two often remains contradictory.

This is because non-co-located climate archives are often used to integrate climatic evidence with archaeological findings. That leads to mismatches stratigraphically, spatially, and causally from the archaeological records. Further, hypotheses are not tested dynamically, which has left the debate unresolved.

Innovative Approach

PIONEER aims to bridge the long-standing disconnect between archaeological and palaeoclimatic records by developing an integrated framework combining cutting-edge methods, including:

• Leaf Wax Biomarker Analysis: Extracting and analysing plant waxes preserved in sediments of archaeological cave sites to reconstruct site-specific past vegetation and hydrology.

• High-Resolution Climate Modelling: Using advanced simulations to create detailed representations of past environments experienced by early humans.

• Agent-Based Modelling: Using simulations to explore how climate and environmental changes influenced human behaviour and population dynamics by modelling the actions of individuals and groups.

PIONEER will examine key archaeological sites in North and South Africa, home to some of the earliest evidence of symbolic thought, such as engraved artefacts and personal ornamentation. These sites span a critical period in human evolution when cultural complexity began to flourish.

Transformational Impact

PIONEER’s interdisciplinary framework is expected to significantly advance our understanding of human-environment interactions and clarify the role of climate as a driver—or non-driver—of innovation. This approach will also provide a scalable model applicable to other regions and periods, transforming future studies of human evolution.

Dr Margit Simon, a leading expert in southern African palaeoclimates, highlighted the importance of the ERC’s support:

"This grant enables me to apply beyond the state-of-the-art techniques to some of the most fundamental questions in human history: How did the environment shape who we are today?"

“Understanding how climate influenced the early development of complex behaviour is crucial because it helps explain how humans adapted and thrived in changing environments, the NORCE researcher says.

“Climate shifts may have driven key innovations—such as tool-making, art, and social organization—that allowed early humans to survive, and spread across the globe”, Simon adds.

By connecting environmental and archaeological data at a regional scale, PIONEER will transform our understanding of whether climate change triggered localized cultural changes or broader, large-scale shifts in our species.

Building on a Legacy of Innovation

“PIONEER builds on the strong foundation established through my work as a researcher in the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BBCR) and Center for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), which provided both intellectual inspiration and financial support for pilot studies."

NORCE is a partner in both centres.

"My work in the Centres enabled the development and testing of innovative methodologies, such as the use of leaf wax biomarkers at archaeological sites, laying the groundwork for PIONEER’s ambitious research goals”, says Margit Simon.

«This is great news. This project will give us a fantastic opportunity to further develop the capacity of SapienCE to deliver groundbreaking results. Margit Simon is a key scientist in SapienCE who integrates paleoclimate knowledge with the archaeological record. I am happy this has paid off with the ERC grant, giving her the ability to pursue her ideas and contribute to ground-breaking results, says Eystein Jansen, a principal investigator at SapienCE and a professor of Earth Sciences and palaeoclimatology at the University of Bergen.

About the ERC

The European Research Council funds frontier research projects across Europe, supporting investigators pursuing groundbreaking, high-risk, high-reward scientific endeavors. The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded its Consolidator Grants of 2024 to 328 researchers. These grants, a total of €678 million, aim to support outstanding scientists and scholars as they establish their independent research teams and develop their most promising scientific ideas. The funding is provided through the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.