HEAS Member Marjolein Bosch Announces New ERC Funded Project: COPE

The project is called COPE. Full title: „The role of climate change on past human living conditions: Resource acquisition strategies and landscape use in eastern Central Europe from the Gravettian Golden Age to the Last Glacial Maximum”.

COPE investigates the influence of climatic changes on human behaviour at the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (30.000-25.000 years ago). This period was marked by extreme climate fluctuations in Europe. Nevertheless, people lived near glaciers and adapted their behaviour to the harsh living conditions. COPE explores the challenges faced by Ice Age hunter-gatherer groups. For example, which animals and plants humans used when resources became more and more scarce and what strategies they developed to survive in such an extreme climate.

Artwork credits: COPE project, artist: Tansy Branscombe

Picture credits: Philip Nigst ; Marjolein Bosch

What impact did extreme climate change have on life during the last Ice Age?