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Volcanism can cause major impacts, including climate change and mass extinctions. However, the impact of monogenetic volcanism is often considered as limited in volcanological research. This work provides for the first time an interdisciplinary approach to the socio-ecological impact of monogenetic volcanism in a key region, the La Garrotxa Volcanic Field (GVF, Girona, NE Iberia), where intense monogenetic volcanic activity occurred in the past. The analyses of a sedimentary sequence from the GVF enabled identifying previously unknown volcanic eruptions in the time interval 14-8.4 ka cal BP, constrain their volcanic stratigraphy and age, and unfold the effects of environmental change on geomorphology, vegetation, aquatic organisms and humans. Moreover, we reconstruct the major palaeoenvironmental changes caused by the eruptions in terms of fire episodes and subsequent disturbance on vegetation, hydrology and limnological conditions. When put in context with the archaeological record, it appears that the last hunter-gatherer communities were resilient at an extra-local scale, facing episodes of vulnerability due to volcanic activity, suggesting that their flexible nomadic patterns and foraging economies were an efficient source of risk management against the volcanic eruptions and their ecological impacts., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The earliest hominin occupation of Europe is one of the most debated topics in palaeoanthropology. However, the purportedly oldest of the Early Pleistocene sites in Eurasia lack precise age control and contain stone tools rather than human fossil remains. Here we report the discovery of a human mandible associated with an assemblage of Mode 1 lithic tools and faunal remains bearing traces of hominin processing, in stratigraphic level TE9 at the site of the Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain. Level TE9 has been dated to the Early Pleistocene (approximately 1.2-1.1 Myr), based on a combination of palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclides and biostratigraphy. The Sima del Elefante site thus emerges as the oldest, most accurately dated record of human occupation in Europe, to our knowledge. The study of the human mandible suggests that the first settlement of Western Europe could be related to an early demographic expansion out of Africa. The new evidence, with previous findings in other Atapuerca sites (level TD6 from Gran Dolina), also suggests that a speciation event occurred in this extreme area of the Eurasian continent during the Early Pleistocene, initiating the hominin lineage represented by the TE9 and TD6 hominins.