Colonization in Europe

Short and repetitive migrations of hominids before 1 million years ago suggest that their residence was not permanent at the time.Colonisation of Europe in both prehistory and recent millennium were not achieved in one immigrating wave, but instead through multiple dispersal events. Most of these instances in Eurasia were limited to 40th parallel north. Besides the findings from East Anglia, the first constant presence of humans in Europe begins 500,000-600,000 years ago. However, this presence was limited to western Europe, not reaching places like the Russian plains, until 200,000-300,000 years ago. The exception to this was discovered in East Anglia, England, where hominids briefly inhabited 700,000 years ago. Prior to arriving in Europe, the source of hominids appeared to be East Africa, where stone tools and hominid fossils are the most abundant and recorded.

Homo erectus populations lived in southeastern Europe by 1.8 million years ago.

The most hominid fossils from the (780,000-125,000 years ago) have been found in Europe. Remains of Homo heidelbergensis have been found as far north as the Atapuerca Mountains in Gran Dolina, Spain, and the oldest specimen can be dated from 850,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Homo neanderthalensis, also known as Neanderthals, evolved from a branch of Homo heidelbergensis that migrated to Europe during the . Neanderthal populations date back as far as 400,000 years ago in the Atapuerca Mountains, Spain. While lacking the robustness attributed to west European Neanderthal morphology, other populations did inhabit parts of eastern Europe and western Asia. Between 45,000 - 35,000 years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens) replaced all Neanderthal populations in Europe anatomically and genetically. This is evident in the transfer and combination of technology and culture.

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