Long description

This is a series of six Mercator maps of the Mediterranean region from North Africa in the south to southern Norway in the north, Britain, Ireland and Spain on the west to the Black Sea in the east. Each of the six maps are dated and have coloured dots representing the oldest dates that human settlements were established. In each successive panel the dots from the previous panels are shown in grey. Panel 1 is dated 13–11.5 ka BP and has fewer than ten purple coloured dots in the Levant region of the Mediterranean (modern day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). Panel 2 is dated 11.5–10 ka BP and has approximately twice as many dots as the previous panel and coloured pink, in an expanded geographic range, but again only in the Levant. Panel 3 is dated 10–8.4 ka BP and shows more many yellow-coloured dots in the Levant but now there are approximately 10 dots on the east coast of Greece. The fourth panel is labelled 8.4–7 ka BP and shows an apparent sudden rapid expansion of human settlements. There are more than 100 green-coloured dots extending from the Levant all the way across mainland Europe, with one settlement in Britain. Panel 5 is labelled 7–5.5 ka BP and shows many more blue dots expanding across the whole of northern Europe as far as Britain and Ireland. The final panel is an amalgamation of the previous five panels giving the impression that human settlements have expanded from the Levant across Europe to Britain in the time period 13–5.5 ka BP.