Autor: Maeve Nic Samhradáin

Publications

Expanding the stdpopsim species catalog, and lessons learned for realistic genome simulations

Lauterbur, M.E., Cavassim, M.I.A., Gladstein, A.L., Gower, G., Pope, N.S., Tsambos, G., Adrion, J., Belsare, S., Biddanda, A., Caudill, V., Cury, J., Echevarria, I., Haller, B.C., Hasan, A.R., Huang, X., Iasi, L.N.M., Noskova, E., Obšteter, J., Pavinato, V.A.C., Pearson, A., Peede, D., Perez, M.F., Rodrigues, M.F., Smith, C.C.R., Spence, J.P., Teterina, A., Tittes, S., Unneberg, P., Vazquez, J.M., Waples, R.K., Wohns, A.W., Wong, Y., Baumdicker, F., Cartwright, R.A., Gorjanc, G., Gutenkunst, R.N., Kelleher, J., Kern, A.D., Ragsdale, A.P., Ralph, P.L., Schrider, D.R., Gronau, I., 2023. Expanding the stdpopsim species catalog, and lessons learned for realistic genome simulations. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. read more

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Is this settlement intersected by a ditch? A comparison between magnetic prospection data, ALS data, and archaeological and geological excavation results from the Early Bronze Age fortified hilltop settlement of Ratzersdorf, Lower Austria

Jetzinger, D., Krenn-Leeb, A., Lindinger, V., Weßling, R., Peresson, M., Supper, R., Roetzel, R., Peticzka, R., 2023. Is this settlement intersected by a ditch? A comparison between magnetic prospection data, ALS data, and archaeological and geological excavation results from the Early Bronze Age fortified hilltop settlement of Ratzersdorf, Lower Austria, Advances in On-and Offshore Archaeological Prospection: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection, pp. 143-147. read more

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A swamp as an obstacle to approach–archaeological and geoelectrical investigations on the Early Bronze Age fortification of Ratzersdorf, Lower Austria,

Krenn-Leeb, A., Supper, R., Ottowitz, D., Jochum, B., Preiner, A., Weßling, R., Jetzinger, D., 2023. A swamp as an obstacle to approach–archaeological and geoelectrical investigations on the Early Bronze Age fortification of Ratzersdorf, Lower Austria, Advances in On-and Offshore Archaeological Prospection: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection, pp. 159-162.   read more

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Exploring the Potential of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Site Korolevo II (Ukraine): New Results on Stratigraphy, Chronology and Archaeological Sequence

Usyk, V.I., Gerasimenko, N., Garba, R., Damblon, F., Nigst, P.R., 2023. Exploring the Potential of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Site Korolevo II (Ukraine): New Results on Stratigraphy, Chronology and Archaeological Sequence. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology 6, 16. read more

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News Allgemein

HEAS in the News -New Publication by HEAS Member

New publication of Philip R. Nigst and colleagues in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology on the results of the new excavations at Korolevo II in Ukraine. The site of Korolevo II in western Ukraine - located in the border area between central and eastern Europe - is mainly known for its Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblage, argued in the past to represent an assemblage at the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. Hence, the site holds a potential for a better understanding of the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic transition and the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans. In this paper we report on our new fieldwork between 2015 and 2017, which provided a new view on the stratigraphy, chronology and archaeological sequence of the site. Read more here   Link to article      

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HEAS Partner Institution New Social Media Accounts

HEAS Partner Institution, the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology/Urgeschichte und Historische Archäologie Wien (IUHA) has new social media accounts. Please follow them for updates on events going on within the Department Twitter: UHAunivienna, https://twitter.com/UHAunivienna Instagram: uhaunivienna, https://www.instagram.com/uhaunivienna/ Facebook: Urgeschichte und Historische Archäologie Wien, https://www.facebook.com/people/Urgeschichte-und-Historische-Arch%C3%A4ologie-Wien/100092946472657/

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Genome-wide coancestry reveals details of ancient and recent male-driven reticulation in baboons

Sørensen, E.F., Harris, R.A., Zhang, L., Raveendran, M., Kuderna, L.F.K., Walker, J.A., Storer, J.M., Kuhlwilm, M., Fontsere, C., Seshadri, L., Bergey, C.M., Burrell, A.S., Bergman, J., Phillips-Conroy, J.E., Shiferaw, F., Chiou, K.L., Chuma, I.S., Keyyu, J.D., Fischer, J., Gingras, M.-C., Salvi, S., Doddapaneni, H., Schierup, M.H., Batzer, M.A., Jolly, C.J., Knauf, S., Zinner, D., Farh, K.K.-H., Marques-Bonet, T., Munch, K., Roos, C., Rogers, J., 2023. Genome-wide coancestry reveals details of ancient and recent male-driven reticulation in baboons. Science 380, eabn8153. read more

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The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates

Gao, H., Hamp, T., Ede, J., Schraiber, J.G., McRae, J., Singer-Berk, M., Yang, Y., Dietrich, A.S.D., Fiziev, P.P., Kuderna, L.F.K., Sundaram, L., Wu, Y., Adhikari, A., Field, Y., Chen, C., Batzoglou, S., Aguet, F., Lemire, G., Reimers, R., Balick, D., Janiak, M.C., Kuhlwilm, M., Orkin, J.D., Manu, S., Valenzuela, A., Bergman, J., Rousselle, M., Silva, F.E., Agueda, L., Blanc, J., Gut, M., de Vries, D., Goodhead, I., Harris, R.A., Raveendran, M., Jensen, A., Chuma, I.S., Horvath, J.E., Hvilsom, C., Juan, D., Frandsen, P., de Melo, F.R., Bertuol, F., Byrne, H., Sampaio, I., Farias, I., do Amaral, J.V., Messias, M., da Silva, M.N.F., Trivedi, M., Rossi, R., Hrbek, T., Andriaholinirina, N., Rabarivola, C.J., Zaramody, A., Jolly, C.J., Phillips-Conroy, J., Wilkerson, G., Abee, C., Simmons, J.H., Fernandez-Duque, E., Kanthaswamy, S., Shiferaw, F., Wu, D., Zhou, L., Shao, Y., Zhang, G., Keyyu, J.D., Knauf, S., Le, M.D., Lizano, E., Merker, S., Navarro, A., Bataillon, T., Nadler, T., Khor, C.C., Lee, J., Tan, P., Lim, W.K., Kitchener, A.C., Zinner, D., Gut, I., Melin, A., Guschanski, K., Schierup, M.H., Beck, R.M.D., Umapathy, G., Roos, C., Boubli, J.P., Lek, M., Sunyaev, S., O’Donnell-Luria, A., Rehm, H.L., Xu, J., Rogers, J., Marques-Bonet, T., Farh, K.K.-H., 2023. The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates. Science 380, eabn8153. read more

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News Allgemein

New publication by HEAS Member José-Miguel Tejero on prehistioric sound instruments

Sound instruments over 12,000 years old identified as used by the last hunter-gatherers of the Near East to imitate the call of birds of prey An international team of archaeologists and ethnomusicologists led by José-Miguel Tejero (Researcher at the Pinhasi Laboratory of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Vienna and HEAS Member) and Laurent Davin (CNRS. France) has discovered a unique set of prehistoric sound instruments in the Near East. These objects come from the Eynan-Mallaha archaeological site (Natufian archaeological culture, c. 13,000-9,700 BC) in northern Israel, excavated since 1955 by a Franco-Israeli team. The results of the study of these materials have just been published in the journal Scientific Reports. Link to article   [gallery ids="2519,2522"] [playlist type="video" ids="2517"]      

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A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species

Kuderna, L.F.K., Gao, H., Janiak, M.C., Kuhlwilm, M., Orkin, J.D., Bataillon, T., Manu, S., Valenzuela, A., Bergman, J., Rousselle, M., Silva, F.E., Agueda, L., Blanc, J., Gut, M., de Vries, D., Goodhead, I., Harris, R.A., Raveendran, M., Jensen, A., Chuma, I.S., Horvath, J.E., Hvilsom, C., Juan, D., Frandsen, P., Schraiber, J.G., de Melo, F.R., Bertuol, F., Byrne, H., Sampaio, I., Farias, I., Valsecchi, J., Messias, M., da Silva, M.N.F., Trivedi, M., Rossi, R., Hrbek, T., Andriaholinirina, N., Rabarivola, C.J., Zaramody, A., Jolly, C.J., Phillips-Conroy, J., Wilkerson, G., Abee, C., Simmons, J.H., Fernandez-Duque, E., Kanthaswamy, S., Shiferaw, F., Wu, D., Zhou, L., Shao, Y., Zhang, G., Keyyu, J.D., Knauf, S., Le, M.D., Lizano, E., Merker, S., Navarro, A., Nadler, T., Khor, C.C., Lee, J., Tan, P., Lim, W.K., Kitchener, A.C., Zinner, D., Gut, I., Melin, A.D., Guschanski, K., Schierup, M.H., Beck, R.M.D., Umapathy, G., Roos, C., Boubli, J.P., Rogers, J., Farh, K.K.-H., Marques Bonet, T., 2023. A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species. Science 380, 906-913.read more

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News

Primate diversity studies with a contribution of HEAS member Martin Kuhlwilm

Several studies on primate genomic variation have now been published in the journal Science. An international consortium of researchers generated and studied high-quality genomes from 233 primate species to gain insights into their evolution, and open new perspectives in conservation biology and human variation related to health. HEAS member Martin Kuhlwilm contributed to these studies, refining a catalog of human-specific changes in the genome. Many recent genetic changes in humans turn out not to be unique to us, but shared with other species. Genetic changes that might make us human seem to be more rare. Studying our living relatives improves how we understand our own species. The publications can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7829 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn8197 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn8153   University of Vienna Press Release         FINAL Embargoed INTERNATIONAL Press Release Primates IBE_UPF https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000172769/was-der-genomvergleich-von-menschen-mit-affen-bringt?ref=rss https://www.diepresse.com/6295230/affen-erbgut-zeigt-was-uns-krank-macht   https://www.vbio.de/aktuelles/details/erbgut-von-primaten-als-schluessel-zur-menschlichen-gesundheit https://biermann-medizin.de/erbgut-von-primaten-als-schluessel-zur-menschlichen-gesundheit/  

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Ana M. HERRERO CORRAL

Dr. Ana M. Herrero Corral is a Marie-Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Prehistory and WANA Archaeology, of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. She has a master's degree in Physical Anthropology and a PhD in Prehistory from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her main research focuses on the social role that children of recent prehistory would have within their communities through the bioarchaeological analysis of the funerary record. During her Marie-Curie project she will explore biological and non-biological kinship relationships between children and adults buried together in multiple graves of recent prehistory Iberia. Since 2017 has been part of the Humanejos research project, one of the most important cemeteries of the III and II millennium BC in Iberia, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Out of an output of over 30 academic publications, those more relevant include: Herrero et al. 2019 The Inheritors: Bell Beaker Children’s Tombs in Iberia and their Social Context, Cintas and Herrero 2020 Missing prehistoric women? Sex ratio as an indicator for analyzing the population of Iberia from the 8th to the 3rd millennia B.C, or the recently published book (Herrero 2022) Bioarchaeological analysis of child burials from the III and II millennium BC in the upper and middle basins of the Tagus.

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Publications

Ancient human DNA recovered from a Palaeolithic pendant

Essel, E., Zavala, E.I., Schulz-Kornas, E., Kozlikin, M.B., Fewlass, H., Vernot, B., Shunkov, M.V., Derevianko, A.P., Douka, K., Barnes, I., Soulier, M.-C., Schmidt, A., Szymanski, M., Tsanova, T., Sirakov, N., Endarova, E., McPherron, S.P., Hublin, J.-J., Kelso, J., Pääbo, S., Hajdinjak, M., Soressi, M., Meyer, M., 2023. Ancient human DNA recovered from a Palaeolithic pendant. Nature. read more

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Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) Team Leaders

Katrin VOHLAND

Management Board

Dr. Katrin Vohland is Director General of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHM Vienna), Austria. Her main research interest is in the interface between science and different public audiences including policy. She develops Open Science strategically for the museum and beyond, including Citizen Science where she is active to employ integrative and reflective approaches.

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News

HEAS Partner Event – The Gold Treasure of Ebreichsdorf – Natural History Museum Vienna

In August 2023, the Late Bronze Age gold finds from Ebreichsdorf, Austria, will be donated to the Natural History Museum Vienna by the Austrian Federal Railways. Within this framework, a conference on prehistoric gold finds will take place at the NHM on August 18-20, 2023. It would be nice to welcome you at this. Below you will find the program and the registration form for participation. Please send in the registrations by 15st June 2023 here   Ahead of the symposium, the Federal Monuments Authority Austria hosts their annual expert round table on the topic "Finds – Reports – Treasures. Archaeological preservation of monuments in the pandemic years" at Mauerbach, Lower Austria, on Thursday, 17th August 2023. Contact for the expert talk Eva Steigberger    With best regards from the Natural History Museum Vienna Karina Grömer Alexandra Krenn-Leeb Michaela Binder Einladung zum Internationalen Symposium The Gold Treasure of Ebreichsdorf Registration Save the date  

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HEAS Seed Grants Awarded

The recipients of the February 2023 HEAS Seed Grants are: Applicant Round Project Amount Granted Victoria Oberreiter and Florian Exler February 2023 Analyzing Altamira: The first aDNA analyses of the renowned cave paintings from northern Spain €3.000,00 Annette Oertle, Katerina Douka, Frank Zachos February 2023 Using museum collections for ZooMS marker development of New Guinea taxa €3.000,00 Dominik Hagmann, Sylvia Kirchengast February 2023 Undiscovered Ancient Deathscapes“: Archaeothanatological Analysis Of Roman and Early Medieval Inhumations from Cemeteries in the Southeastern Upper Danube River Basin (sUDRB) during the Roman Climate Optimum (RCO) and Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) €3.000,00 Olivia Cheronet, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Daniel Fernandes, Adrian Daly February 2023 Confirmation of the presence of Mucopolysaccharidosis in the Medieval population of Pottenbrunn (Lower Austria) €3.000,00 Richard Kimber, Susanna Sawyer,Florian Exler February 2023 A density separation approach for improved ancient DNA yields from sediments €3.000,00 Due to due to the positive development in terms of quality and available budget, we were able to grant 5 proposals in this round For more information about the HEAS Seed Grants please see here

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Blog Posts

The first ‚Geoarchaeology in Vienna‘ Workshop

Authors: Thomas Beard, Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger   At the beginning of this year, from the 11th to the 12th of January 2024, the first ‘Geoarchaeology in Vienna’ workshop took place at the University of Vienna, generously funded by HEAS. Born out of the wish to connect and create a nexus between geoarchaeologists based in Vienna, the workshop was conceived and organised by Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger and Thomas Beard, all students within the University of Vienna. The vision for this kickoff-event was to get to know each other, establish connections, and lay the foundation for a network of geoarchaeologists in Vienna. Concerning Geoarchaeology It may have been noticed that, while there are a multitude of institutes of archaeological studies all over Vienna, there is no “Geoarchaeology” department per se. So, what is geoarchaeology then? Every geoarchaeologist has most likely been confronted with this question at some point - by members of the public, colleagues from other disciplines, colleagues from within geoarchaeology, or even by themselves. This may be closely tied to the inherently great diversity within the discipline, including many different specialisations that may, or may not decide to carry the label of 'geoarchaeology'. This often leads to 'missing out on each other' by attending vastly different conferences and different sessions within those conferences, but also being housed in quite diverse…

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Emily J. KATE

Emily J. Kate is bioarchaeologist specializing in radiocarbon dating, isotopic studies of paleodiet and migration, human osteology and paleodemography, and has worked with projects from Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and in Europe. Her interests include the manner in which paleodietary variation and changing trends can be used to assess shifts in social structure, political organization, and resilience, the effects of long-distance migration on the social and political landscape of societies, and the refinement of regional chronologies through targeted radiocarbon programs and Bayesian modeling. Emily is currently the Project Coordinator for the ERC funded SUSTAIN project at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science and is also an editor for the Cambridge University Press book series, Elements in Ancient and Premodern Economies.

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Blog Posts

A Bell Beaker workshop in Vienna

Blog post by Eve Derenne and Karina Grömer On March 21, 2023, members of two partner institutions from the HEAS network — the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science and the Natural History Museum Vienna — co-organised a workshop titled ‘Interweaving Bell Beaker decorative motifs and textile patterns: Exploring technical and symbolic productions during the third millennium BCE in Europe’. The idea for this workshop emerged in September 2022, when Priv.-Doz. Dr. Karina Grömer (Head of the Prehistory Department at the NHM) and Dr. Eve Derenne (postdoctoral fellow, VIAS) met by chance in Hallstatt during a science communication event, the ‘Archäologie am Berg’ day. The conversation regarding the reconstruction of Bronze and Iron Age textiles shifted to the subject of Bell Beakers, a crucial component of SEASCAPES, the project currently occupying Eve's time in Vienna. The intricate motifs found on both Bell Beaker pottery and anthropomorphic stelae have often been compared to textile patterns, but few if any publications have really substantiated that claim. Several aspects of this topic have also remained unexplored, such as the weaving or fiber working methods used to produce these repeated geometric patterns, and whether these techniques were already established by the third millennium BCE. This lively discussion ultimately resulted in an agreement to hold a workshop that would bring together experts from both fields, with…

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New Publication by HEAS Head Gerhard Weber

The new paper “Quantum Leaps in Human Biocultural Evolution and the Relationship to Cranial Capacity” published in Life 2023, 13 by HEAS Head Gerhard Weber bridges between the domains of biological anthropology and archaeology. The evolution of the genus Homo can only be understood by considering both of the inheritance systems that interact to shape human nature: biology and culture. While growing intellectual abilities are a key factor of human evolution, they are rarely contrasted with cultural progress. Cranial capacity data of 193 hominin fossils from the last seven million years and artefacts of increasing number and complexity in the archaeological record are used to demonstrate the concordant progression of brain-size increase and cultural development, starting approximately two million years ago. Our biocultural evolution shows a number of quantum leaps along the time axis applying to both domains. At first, humans left the canonical evolutionary pathway, which pertains to all other organisms, by enhancing their fitness using sophisticated tools and fire; secondly, they turned into a symbolic species; and finally, humanity now faces a new challenge: “intentional evolution”. Chronologically, these quantum leaps correspond to cranial capacity data used here as a proxy for cognitive performance. This contribution tries to demonstrate this parallel development and argues for a simple and generalized model of human biocultural evolution. An extrapolation of the model into the…

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Call for Papers – Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris

Dear Colleagues, It is our pleasure to invite you to submit your contributions to Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris (BMSAP; published by OpenEditions, Diamond Open Access = free for authors and readers). We wish to regroup in two special issues of the BMSAP to be published in 2024, under the format "note" (no more than 30,000 characters including spaces) in English or in French (see "author guidelines" in copy), contributions based on original data or reviews in the specific fields related to the two following topics (see below for more details): - "Invasive, micro-invasive and non-invasive analysis of anthropobiological remains. How and why?" - "Current views on women in past societies: social constructions, biocultural perspectives and archaeo-anthropological insights" If you are interested in participating to these special issues of the BMSAP, please let us know by April 30th, 2023. Feel free to circulate this call to colleagues who might be interested to participate to this special issue. All manuscripts will have to be submitted to: redacchef@sapweb.fr, preferentially before June 30th, 2023. Please specify in the subject of the submission message: "Note Session" + the topic. We thank you for your interest in this editorial project and remain at your disposal for any additional information. Yours sincerely, For the Editorial Committee of the BMSAP, Anne Le Maître…

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Publications

Early Upper Paleolithic cultural variability in the Southern Levant: New evidence from Nahal Rahaf 2 Rockshelter, Judean Desert, Israel

Shemer, M., Boaretto, E., Greenbaum, N., Bar-Yosef Mayer, D.E., Tejero, J.-M., Langgut, D., Gnezdilov, D.L., Barzilai, O., Marder, O., Marom, N., 2023. Early Upper Paleolithic cultural variability in the Southern Levant: New evidence from Nahal Rahaf 2 Rockshelter, Judean Desert, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution 178, 103342. read more

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Adaptability of Bony Armor Elements of the Threespine Stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus (Teleostei: Gasterosteidae): Ecological and Evolutionary Insights from Symmetry Analyses

Schröder, M., Windhager, S., Schaefer, K., Ahnelt, H., 2023. Adaptability of Bony Armor Elements of the Threespine Stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus (Teleostei: Gasterosteidae): Ecological and Evolutionary Insights from Symmetry Analyses. Symmetry 15, 811. read more

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2023 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS – The Rohlf Medal

The Rohlf Medal for Excellence in Morphometric Methods and Applications was established in 2006 by the family and friends of F. James Rohlf to mark his 70th birthday. He has been a longtime Stony Brook University faculty member and is currently Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, and Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology.   Recipients of the Rohlf Medal will be recognized for excellence in their sustained body of work on the development of new morphometric methods or for their applications in the biomedical sciences, including evolutionary biology, population biology, physical anthropology, and medicine. The term “morphometrics” is intended to include high-dimensional pattern analysis of biological form, especially those methods that analyze shape in a comprehensive way, or of covariation of shape with other variables. Additional details may be found on the Rohlf Medal website: https://tinyurl.com/RohlfMedalNom.   Nominations may be made either by the nominee himself/herself or by a colleague. Nominations consist of a letter making the case for the nominee for the 2023 award. Nominees under full consideration by the committee may then be asked to provide additional materials as described on the website: https://tinyurl.com/RohlfMedalNom. Nominations must be submitted to that website by June 15, 2023.   The successful candidate will receive the Rohlf Medal and a cash prize at Stony Brook University,…

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Tom MALTAS

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Archaeology on the 'Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World' (MIGMAG) project at the Institute for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna. My research uses archaeobotany and stable isotope analysis to understand the roles of farming in societal change in the prehistoric Mediterranean. For MIGMAG, I am investigating changes in land use and agricultural production strategies that may have accompanied mobility, demographic change and urbanisation in the Iron Age Mediterranean. I recently completed a DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, where I analysed archaeobotanical assemblages from Chalcolithic and Bronze Age western Anatolia.

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HEAS Head Gerhard Weber’s article on ‚The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf‘ is in the Top 100 Scientific Reports papers published in 2022.

Gerhard Weber's article on 'The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf ' is in the Top 100 Scientific Reports papers published in 2022. The almost 11 cm high figurine from Willendorf is one of the most important examples of early art in Europe. It is made of a rock called "oolite" which is not found in or around Willendorf. A research team led by the anthropologist Gerhard Weber from the University of Vienna and the two geologists Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser as well as the prehistorian Walpurga Antl-Weiser from the Natural History Museum Vienna have now found out with the help of high-resolution tomographic images that the material from which the Venus was carved likely comes from northern Italy. This sheds new light on the remarkable mobility of the first modern humans south and north of the Alps.   Link to full article

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Network Associates

Daniel FERNANDES

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Ron Pinhasis's group, in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Vienna. My expertise is the paleogenomic analysis of ancient human populations, specifically targeting ancestry determination, phenotypic assessment, admixture simulations, and societal organisation using kinship. Complementary interests and work areas involve the development and use of bioinformatic tools and pipelines for various genomic analysis, specifically for kinship estimation, as well as the development of ancient DNA laboratory methodologies and protocols for improved bone sampling and endogenous DNA separation.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Lumila Paula MENÉNDEZ

I am a biological anthropologist specialized in human evolution and biocultural diversity in the Americas. I was born in Argentina, where I also conducted my studies and most of my training. Currently, I am leading two projects, one funded by the German Foundation for Scientific Research (DFG), aims to study cranial variation in individuals from South America, for evaluating the role of evolutionary and ecological factors during the human diversification across the whole Holocene; and the other, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), points to validate virtual anthropology protocols for contributing in the forensic human identification in Mexico. To tackle these issues, I apply imagining techniques, geometric morphometrics methods, as well as multivariate statistics, and I work interdisciplinary collaborating with archaeologists, geneticists, forensic experts, biologists, linguists, and philosophers of science.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Annette OERTLE

I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Douka Palaeoproteomics and ZooMS laboratory in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. As an archaeological scientist (zooarchaeologist) I specialise in collagen peptide fingerprinting (ZooMS) and archaeomalacology. My research interests lie in tropical, coastal and island archaeology with particular focus on Australia, the Pacific Islands and Island South East Asia (ISEA). I am interested in questions regarding human evolution, changes in subsistence behaviours, and site formation processes. I completed my PhD in 2019 from the University of Sydney, Australia, and was a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC FINDER project based at the Max Planck Institute SHH Jena, Germany. I am currently a Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow leading project DENI-CESTOR (DENIsovan anCESTORs in Sahul: deciphering human evolution through molecular techniques) and PI on a Leaking Foundation Grant (Using ZooMS to identify new human fossils in archaeological deposits in Papua New Guinea). Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2024) Principal Investigator: Leakey Foundation Grant (2022-2023)

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News

Seascapes project announced in the European Archaeologist’s Newsletter

Seascapes, a project being undertaken by HEAS Members Eve Derenne and Maria Ivanova-Bieg along with their colleague Lucy Cramp (University of Bristol), has been announced in the European Archaeologist's Newsletter. Seascapes: tracing the emergence and spread of maritime networks in the Mediterranean in the 3rd millennium bce was developed with the specific aim to refine the absolute chronological framework in the western Mediterranean and investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of the Bell Beaker complex from a maritime perspective. Seascapes received a 3-year grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)   Read full article here

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HEAS Head Gerhard Weber announces the release of the EVAN Toolbox 1.75 software for 3D shape and form analysis for free use.

The EVAN Toolbox (ET) is a software package developed by the European Virtual Anthropology Network – EVAN (www.evan.at) and the EVAN-Society to facilitate 3D form and shape analysis of objects featuring a complex geometry. It uses Geometric Morphometrics (GM) which includes methods such as General Procrustes Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Thin-Plate Spline Warping or Partial Least Squares Analysis. The software supports also data acquisition, particularly locating landmarks and sliding semilandmarks on curves and surfaces.   The version ET 1.75 is now freely accessible for everybody https://www.evan-society.org/support/download-evan-toolbox/. Manuals explaining how to use ET Core and ET Templand as well as test data and predefined Visual Programming Networks (VPNs) can be downloaded under https://www.evan-society.org/support/et-open-space/.   Please acknowledge the EVAN-Society if you use ET for your research. [video width="1864" height="1150" mp4="https://www.heas.at/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/PC_Warp_Humans-1.mp4"][/video]

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