Demographic models predict end-Pleistocene arrival and rapid expansion of pre-agropastoralist humans in Cyprus

The antiquity of human dispersal into Mediterranean islands and ensuing coastal adaptation have remained largely unexplored due to the prevailing assumption that the sea was a barrier to movement and that islands were hostile environments to early hunter-gatherers [J. F. Cherry, T. P. Leppard, , 191-205 (2018), 10.1080/15564894.2016.1276489]. Using the latest archaeological data, hindcasted climate projections, and age-structured demographic models, we demonstrate evidence for early arrival (14,257 to 13,182 calendar years ago) to Cyprus and predicted that large groups of people (~1,000 to 1,375) arrived in 2 to 3 main events occurring within