An interdisciplinary study of a small sedimentary basin at Neumark Nord 2 (NN2), Germany, has yielded a high-resolution record of the palaeomagnetic Blake Event, which we are able to place at the early part of the last interglacial pollen sequence documented from the same section. We use this data to calculate the duration of this stratigraphically important event at 3400 ± 350 yr. More importantly, the Neumark Nord 2 data enables precise terrestrial–marine correlation for the Eemian stage in central Europe. This shows a remarkably large time lag of ca. 5000 yr between the MIS 5e ‘peak’ in the marine record and the start of the last interglacial in this region.

Long-running discussions about when Europe was first colonized have recently been fuelled by new discoveries from the Iberian peninsula, which reports hominid occupation by 800,000, or even by 1.8 million years ago. The proceedings of the important Tautavel workshop (1993), published as The earliest occupation of Europe (Roebroeks & van Kolfschoten (ed.) 1995), are now central. This new assessment takes forward ANTIQUITY'S notice by Roebroeks & van Kolfschoten of 1994 (68: 489–503).

A reappraisal of the artefactual and chronological evidence for the earliest occupation of Europe — with proper attention to its limitations and its reliability — makes for a short chronology. The first solid traces of hominid activities in this part of the world are around 500,000 years old.