The European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant will fund research on "the dynamics of early Homo sapiens migrations in and from Africa". The 2.5 million euro grant was awarded to Nuno Bicho, a Portuguese researcher from the Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB) at the University of Algarve.

"The work will take place in the Limpopo and Save river basins in southern Mozambique, an area that mediates the two key regions of our species' emergence, namely southern Africa and eastern Africa," Bicho said.

Besides assessing the dynamics of Homo Sapiens, Nuno Bicho's research will gather archaeological data to prove that the human populations of southern Africa were the genesis of our species' migration from Africa, some 70,000 years ago.

The proof of this hypothesis will be in the hands of an international group of experienced researchers to be joined by four PhD researchers and four PhD students.

This project, called "Dispersals" will thus be "crucial in providing archaeological, chronological and paleoenvironmental data that will be innovative and of high resolution."

This research "will provide a fundamental new perspective on the processes relating to the earliest migrations and dispersals of our species on and off the African continent and resulting in human diaspora across the planet over the last 100,000 years."

The European Research Council supports and funds pioneering projects and researchers at progressive stages of their career. Established by the European Commission in 2007, it operates according to the principles of scientific excellence, open science, autonomy, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability and research integrity ensured by the European Commission.