Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Human evolution in the Pleistocene -- 2 Biogeographical patterns -- Vegetation structure -- Forests -- Shrublands -- Open habitats -- Deserts -- Rocky habitats -- Wetlands -- The sea -- Mosaics: transitional and edge habitats and heterogeneous landscapes -- Altitude -- Habitat changes in the Quaternary -- Forests -- Shrublands -- Open habitats and deserts -- Contrasting equatorial, tropical and sub-tropical Africa, the intermediate mountainous belt and the northern plains -- Tropical and sub-tropical Africa -- The intermediate mountainous belt -- The Great Eurasian Plain -- South, South-east and East Asia -- The periphery -- Mammalian herbivores -- Proboscideans (Order Proboscidea) -- Perissodactyls (Order Perissodactyla) -- Horses (Equidae) -- Tapirs (Tapiridae) -- Rhinoceroses (Rhinocerotidae) -- Artiodactyls (Order Artiodactyla) -- Pigs (Suidae) -- Hippopotamuses (Hippopotamidae) -- Camels (Camelidae) -- Chevrotain and mouse deer (Tragulidae) -- Giraffes and okapi (Giraffidae) -- Deer (Cervidae) -- Pronghorn (Antilocapridae) -- Wild cattle and antelopes (Bovidae) -- Herbivore distribution patterns -- Mammalian herbivore biogeographical patterns and climate -- Synthesis -- Mammalian herbivores as a resource -- Topography of the terrain as a template in which to obtain mammalian herbivores -- Habitats and landscapes -- Barriers -- 3 Human range expansions, contractions and extinctions -- African beginnings -- The dynamics of colonisation and extinction -- The global pattern of colonisation and extinction -- Sahara, Middle East and southern Africa -- South to South-east Asia, north-west Africa and south-east Europe -- Central and western Mediterranean Europe and the Eurasian Plain -- The European case -- The period 70-0 Myr.

The period 6-0 Myr -- The period 850-0 kyr -- The period 90-0 kyr -- The period 1.7 Myr-850 kyr -- The period 850-600 kyr -- The period 600-250 kyr -- The period 250-150 kyr -- The period 150-50 kyr -- The period 50-0 kyr -- Colonisation events -- 800-750 kyr -- 600-550 kyr -- 250-200 kyr -- Extinction events -- 750-700 kyr -- 650-600 kyr -- 500-450 kyr -- 100-50 kyr -- Intervening periods -- 700-650 kyr -- 550-500 kyr -- 450-250 kyr -- 200-100 kyr -- 50-0 kyr -- Contact between African and European populations -- Persistence of hominid populations -- Geographical origin of early European Modern Humans -- The Mediterranean and hominids in the Pleistocene -- The Middle East -- The Maghreb -- The Iberian Peninsula -- Italy and the Balkans -- The role of the mid-latitude belt -- Synthesis -- 4 The Modern Human-Neanderthal problem -- The species problem -- Sympatry or allopatry? -- Genes -- Ecomorphology -- Behaviour -- Patterns -- Synthesis -- 5 Comparative behaviour and ecology of Neanderthals and Modern Humans -- Food and feeding ecology -- Predominantly plains species -- Predominantly heterogeneous landscape species -- Intermediate species -- Habitat, landscape and geographical range -- Home range, group size and related features -- Technology -- Symbolic and social behaviour -- Language -- Neanderthal-Modern ecological and behavioural differences -- Synthesis -- Neanderthals -- Modern humans -- 6 The conditions in Africa and Eurasia during the last glacial cycle -- The global pattern -- Temperate and boreal Europe: the Eurasian Plain -- The Mediterranean -- Africa -- Synthesis -- 7 The Modern Human colonisation and the Neanderthal extinction -- Humans, climate and environmental change -- Competition -- Hybridisation -- Behavioural differences and cultural exchange -- Glacial refugia -- The Iberian refugium -- Late Acheulian (Mode 2/3).

Mousterian (Mode 3) -- Aurignacian (Mode 4) -- Gravettian (Mode 4) -- Solutrean (Mode 4) -- Magdalenian (Mode 4) -- Epipalaeolithic (Mode 5) -- Early and Middle Neolithic -- The transition in Iberia -- Synthesis -- Human adaptation -- Instability -- Habitat tracking -- The Modern Human super-organism -- 8 The survival of the weakest -- Technological innovation -- The last glacial maximum -- The last deglaciation -- Systems of food production -- Two alternative ways of being human -- References -- Index.