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The culture and dispersal of early modern humans are top priorities of many research agendas. While the debate primarily centers on genetics, dispersal trajectories and points of earliest presence, the context (climate, landscape, demography, culture) of the colonizing process is usually considered in a coarse-grained manner or even ignored. To understand the context of human dispersal and to decipher relevant push and pull factors requires the consideration of multiple environmental proxies and the research on different geographic scales. In this paper, we present the Late Quaternary Carpathian Basin as a specific context area of early modern human dispersal into Europe. The multitude of Early Upper Paleolithic sites in this region suggests that it was part of a major dispersal corridor along the Danube and its catchment area some 40,000 years ago. The Aurignacian land-use model describes the interaction of early modern humans with their environment. One important parameter is the specific distribution of archaeological sites that exemplifies their boundedness to specific eco-zones. To reconstruct the latter, paleo-environmental proxies and archaeological data are examined together in regional vector models and in a GIS based landscape archaeology approach. In the final section, we present the Carpathian Basin as an idiosyncratic habitat that mirrors the dynamics and complexity of early modern human adaptation.

© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps. Supraregional (palaeo)geoecological studies require detailed knowledge of the distribution of aeolian sediments and their sources. Such spatial data can be visualised and shared in maps, but often these are constrained in their resolution or extent. This is the case for the Carpathian Basin, where cross-border maps are not detailed enough to answer many research questions. Problems occur especially along political borders due to different geological mapping standards and varying lithological definitions. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS), we compiled a map showing the distribution of loess and related Quaternary sediments in the Carpathian Basin, with unprecedented detail. We vectorised and analysed existing data (mainly from geological maps) and combined and transferred these into a common (loess) sediment classification system. This cross-border map shows the distribution of aeolian sediments in the Carpathian Basin at a scale of 1:1,500,000. For the northwestern and the southern Carpathian Basin, we added maps that clarify the extent of late Pleistocene and Holocene terrace and floodplain deposits, which were merged in the Main Map to highlight the predominant dust source areas for this region.