The Early Pleistocene human dispersals in the Circum-Mediterranean Basin and initial peopling of Europe: Single or multiple pathways?

This Early Pleistocene distribution cluster of occurrences in Iberia and Atlantic Europe refutes implicitly a single linked human-Ethiopian mammal biogeographic event exclusively through Western Asia, while reviving the notion of 'sweepstake' dispersal directly across the Strait of Gibraltar, a scenario which, however, demands independent confirmation by reviewing past circumstances favourable for a crossing, as well as suggesting a series of multiple staging-posts. The observed bimodal spatiotemporal configuration becomes more compatible with another hypothesis namely, that Europe was peopled independently by converging population movements from both the Western Asian and Ibero-Moroccan staging posts during the Early Pleistocene, between ca. 1.85-1.40 Ma.