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Turner, A.
Large carnivores and earliest European hominids: changing determinants of resource availability during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene
1992 Journal of Human Evolution (22): 109-126
The archaeological record seems to imply sporadic occupation of Euope during the Lower Pleistocene, but it may always be difficult to reach firmer conclusions from this alone. A framework for viewing the pattern of European settlement is proposed based on the changing availability of scavengeable remains of larger ungulates. The structure of the larger carnivore guild would have conditioned that availability, and is likely to have presented obstacles to successful settlements until the latter part of the Middle Pleistocene when the guild came to resemble that of modern-day Africa. These changes imply that initial hominid colonizations during the Lower Pleistocene simply could not be maintained, and that only in the later Middle Pleistocene did conditions become suitable for more permanent occupation.
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