The concept of novel ecosystems has been discussed for over more than a decade to describe ecosystems that have an altered species composition and function, such that the community has crossed a threshold forbidding a return to its historical state. While spatial and temporal community compositional change has been well studied in biogeography, studies on novel ecosystems in a modern context are few and tend towards classifyin...

Aim In this paper, we investigate the role of climate and topography in shaping the distribution of Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) at different spatial scales. To this end, we compiled the most comprehensive data set on the distribution of this species during the Last Interglacial optimum ( MIS 5e) available to date. This was used to calibrate a palaeo‐species distribution model, and analyse variable importance at cont...

The exact pattern, process and timing of the human re‐colonization of northern Europe after the end of the last Ice Age remain controversial. Recent research has provided increasingly early dates for at least pioneer explorations of latitudes above 54°N in many regions, yet the far north‐west of the European landmass, Scotland, has remained an unexplained exception to this pattern. Although the recently described Hamburgian ar...