Geography of Neandertals and Modern Humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean, (Peabody Museum Bull., 8), 2000, 220 p., 69 fig., 8 tables, br. -

During the Middle Paleolithic, various populations ancestral to modern Homo sapiens inhabited Africa, while Europe was homeland to the Neandertals. Recent archaeological investigations have provided data showing that the abrupt transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, during which these populations met and interacted, was a fast-moving period of change for both groups involved. This volume presents the edited proceedings of a conference that addressed this transition, held at the Peabody Museum in 1997. The expansion of modern humans and their impact on the populations of Neandertals, not only in Europe, but also in Western Asia and Northern Africa, is discussed in depth, with particular focus on the lithic industries of the different groups in the Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic.