News

HEAS Seed Grants for June 2023 announced

HEAS Head Gerhard Weber today announced funding for three grants for HEAS member under the HEAS Seed Grant scheme. The successful applicants were: Applicant Project Amount Granted Susanna Sawyer, Pere Gelabert, Mareike Stahlschmidt Tissue source determination of ancient DNA in sediment €3.000,00 Laura van der Sluis, Georg Tiefengraber Early Bronze Age clothing bone pins from the Natural History Museum archive €3.000,00 Tom Higham, Emese Végh HUMEVCOL – Human Evolution Beyond Collagen €2.955,47 For more information about the HEAS Seed Grant scheme see here

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Where are the Roman women of Ovilava? A spatio-temporal approach to interpret the female deficit at the eastern Roman cemetery (Gräberfeld Ost) of Ovilava, Austria

Hagmann, D., Ankerl, B., Greisinger, M., Miglbauer, R., Kirchengast, S., 2023. Where are the Roman women of Ovilava? A spatio-temporal approach to interpret the female deficit at the eastern Roman cemetery (Gräberfeld Ost) of Ovilava, Austria. Anthropological Review 86, 89-118. read more

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News Allgemein

New publication on deep learning for population genetics by HEAS member Xin Huang and others

  The journal Nature Reviews Genetics published today a comprehensive review on how deep learning techniques are used in the context of population genetics, such as tasks for inferring demographic histories, identifying population structure and investigating natural selection from high-throughput sequencing data. With increasingly large-scale datasets on genetic diversity, especially for modern and ancient humans, technologies from deep learning are becoming more and more popular for studying evolutionary biology. An overview on this highly dynamic interdisciplinary field is presented in this publication, providing guidelines and discussing future directions. HEAS members Xin Huang and Martin Kuhlwilm led this work, with contributions from HEAS member Aigerim Rymbekova, as well as collaborators in Spain. Click here for more

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Gene flow from an extinct population in gorillas uncovered by HEAS member Martin Kuhlwilm and team

A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution has discovered gene flow from a previously-unknown extinct gorilla population into eastern gorillas. This result shows that our close relatives experienced an evolutionary history similar to modern humans, who have received gene flow from extinct hominins like Neandertals. In this study, advanced statistical methods including those that use neural networks were used to computationally excavate the signature of a now-extinct gorilla population that contributed to both mountain gorillas and the closely related eastern lowland gorilla subspecies, who live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Up to 3% of the genome of present-day eastern gorillas carries remnants from this ghost population, which separated from the common ancestor of all gorillas more than 3 million years ago. The study was led by HEAS researcher Martin Kuhlwilm and his collaborators Harvinder Pawar and Prof. Tomas Marques-Bonet at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC, Barcelona), with contributions from HEAS members Aigerim Rymbekova, Xin Huang and Sojung Han, as well as an international team. The publication can be found here: Ghost admixture in eastern gorillas. - HEAS Read more Das genetische Erbe unserer ausgestorbenen Ahnen (univie.ac.at) Press Coverage https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000180861/geisterpopulation-im-erbgut-von-gorillas-aufgespuert https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000180861/geisterpopulation-im-erbgut-von-gorillas-aufgespuert?ref=rss https://www.krone.at/3071687 https://www.sn.at/panorama/wissen/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich-142716559 https://www.kleinezeitung.at/service/newsticker/chronik/6310429/Gorillas-tragen-DNA-von-ausgestorbenen-Verwandten-in-sich https://www.puls24.at/news/chronik/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich/303700 https://www.vienna.at/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich/8209804 https://www.noen.at/in-ausland/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich-378466000 https://www.vol.at/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich/8209804 https://www.bvz.at/in-ausland/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich-378466000 https://k.at/news/gorillas-tragen-dna-von-ausgestorbenen-verwandten-in-sich/402538409 https://www.vbio.de/aktuelles/details/das-genetische-erbe-unserer-ausgestorbenen-ahnen https://www.myscience.at/news/2023/das_genetische_erbe_unserer_ausgestorbenen_ahnen-2023-univie https://www.drei.at/de/planet-drei/news/aktuell/story.html?uuid=73e3b90c-6ffe-43ba-a821-ad840760807a https://science.apa.at/power-search/7164475450544787115 https://science.apa.at/power-search/6378096686257573758 https://phys.org/news/2023-07-gene-extinct-gorilla-population-eastern.html https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/genetic-heritage-from-a-ghost-population-376914 https://www.miragenews.com/genetic-heritage-of-our-extinct-ancestors-1056006/ https://todayschronic.com/gene-flow-from-an-extinct-gorilla-population-to-eastern-gorillas-discovered/#respond

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HEAS Member interviewed for Nature

HEAS Member Meriam Guellil was recently interviewed for  a Nature feature on the study of the role of ancient microbes in understanding the evolution of past infectious diseases. Read article here: Germs, genes and soil: tales of pathogens past (nature.com) Related article: Ancient tooth DNA reveals how ‘cold sore’ herpes virus has evolved (nature.com)

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Michelle HÄMMERLE

I am a PhD student at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. After a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Medicine, I completed the master's program in Evolutionary Anthropology here in Vienna. My research interests focus on ancient host and pathogen DNA and I work with both great apes and humans. For my master’s thesis, I investigated DNA viruses in great apes, where I am still doing more research. My PhD project deals with social genomics in underprivileged individuals from Northern Italy, where I will incorporate different datasets, including archaeological and osteological data, to get an insight into the living conditions of the populations studied.

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Pecha Kucha

HEAS Pecha Kucha

What is a Pecha Kucha? The PechaKucha 20x20 presentation format is a slide show of 20 images, each auto-advancing after 20 seconds. It’s non-stop and you've got 400 seconds to tell your story, with visuals guiding the way. PechaKucha was created in Japan in 2003 by renowned architects, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. The word “PechaKucha” is Japanese for “chit chat.” The HEAS Pecha Kucha series is a bi- monthly online meeting of HEAS members. Here are the talks which have taken place so far: Name Topic Doris Nagel MIS 3 Gerhard Weber Why Neanderthals are not essentially a European story Karl Kunst Bones - the other Pots? Peter Steier C-14 from the more technical side Martin Fieder Behavior genetics of social status and group behavior Martin Kuhlwilm Admixture in genomes - how to find it and what it means Michael Doneus Landscape archaeology at the interface between natural science and humanities. Sylvia Kirchengast, Dominik Hagmann The Bioarchaeology of Ovilava/Wels (AUT): Osteoarchaeological and spatio-temporal analysis of Roman and Early Medieval burials from the ‚Gräberfeld Ost‘ Thomas Higham The chronology of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic: reliable radiocarbon dating using compound specific approaches Alexandra Krenn-Leeb People, their Habitat and Environment from the Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age Harald Wilfing The role of human ecology and old bones.  Synergies or only incompatibilities. Immo Trinks Geophysical archaeological prospection Maria Ivanova-Bieg Pioneer farmers and…

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HEAS Member awarded FWF Grant

Congratulations to HEAS Member Elmira Mohandesan on being awarded a standalone FWF grant for her project titled "Genome-wide Genetic Diversity, Ancestry and Inbreeding in New Zealand Feral Kaimanawa Horses". This grant will also support a PhD Candidate.   More information and application details here

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„Archäologie am Berg“. Public Weekend of Archaeology in Hallstatt in September.

The Natural History Museum Vienna and the Salzwelten Hallstatt invite you to their annual public weekend of archeology on the mountain in Hallstatt:   When: Saturday, September 16 and Sunday, September 17, 2023, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m Location: Around the "Alte Schmiede", the branch of the NHM in Hallstatt The latest results of archaeologists and their related disciplines relating to archeology on the Salzberg are presented at around 15 stands. See the attached program for details. Arch am Berg September 2023_Einladung+Programm_DIGITAL

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Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) Members

Konstantina SALIARI

Konstantina Saliari is the curator of the Archeological Zoological Collection at the Natural History Museum Vienna. She took her Master´s degree in archaeology with the specialization in archaeozoology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2012 and her PhD in archaeozoology from the University of Vienna in 2017. Konstantina Saliari has carried out archaeozoological analysis of animal remains from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as from the Roman, Early Medieval and Medieval periods. Her main research topics include husbandry strategies, socio-economic and environmental aspects, aiming at connecting different research fields and the dissemination of archaeozoological methods and results to academic and public audience.

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New Paper by HEAS Member Tom Maltas

HEAS Member Tom Maltas has recently had a paper published in Scientific Reports on 'Agricultural adaptations to mid-late Holocene climate change in western Türkiye'. Abstract The period around the mid-late Holocene transition (c. 2200 bc) saw major societal developments across the eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, the region experienced a shift to more arid climatic conditions. This included punctuated episodes of rapid climate change such as the ‘4.2 ka event’, which has been implicated in widespread societal ‘collapse’ at the end of the Early Bronze Age. The ways in which societies adapted agricultural production to cope with a drying climate are poorly understood. We begin to rectify this through stable isotope analysis of archaeobotanical remains from the Aegean region of western Türkiye, conducted to reveal changes in agricultural decision making across the mid-late Holocene transition. We find that Bronze Age farmers adapted agricultural production strategies by investing in drought-tolerant cereals cultivated on drier fields with water management strategies redirected towards pulses. Despite this, we find no evidence for pronounced drought stress in cereals grown during the period of the 4.2 ka event. This raises the potential for alternative explanations for societal disruptions visible across the Anatolian Plateau during this time, such as the breakdown of long-distance trade networks. Read full article

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HEAS in the News – oldest plague victims in Austria identified by HEAS Member Katharina Rebay-Salisbury

Within the framework of an interdisciplinary analysis of the Early Bronze Age burials from Drasenhofen, evidence was found for what are currently the oldest plague victims in Austria. The male individuals, who died at the age of 23–30 and 22–27 years, respectively, were buried not far from each other in the north-easternmost and south-easternmost grave of the row cemetery comprising a total of 22 graves. Despite the spatial and temporal proximity, the genetic pathogen analyses detected two different strains of plague bacteria (Yersinia pestis). Thus, it was not one infection that was transmitted within the Bronze Age group, but two independent infection events. In this article, we present the phylogenetic positions of these two Yersinia pestis strains together with other prehistoric, historic and modern plague genomes known so far, discuss biological basics of transmission and possible transmission routes, and attempt a cultural-historical interpretation in comparison with similar anthropological and archaeological contexts.   https://austriaca.at/bronzezeit-pest-in-drasenhofen     Read media coverage below: https://science.orf.at/stories/3219896/   https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000175379/aelteste-pesttote-oesterreichs-gefunden  

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Thomas BEARD

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology as part of Mareike Stahlschmidt’s team. I received my Masters degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. For my MSc I worked at the site of Border Cave, South Africa, using the geoarchaeological techniques of fabric and facies analyses to understand the formation of the upper portion of the archaeological sequence. I am a geoarchaeologist, with a specific interest in investigating micro- to macroscale cave/rockshelter site formation processes and employing a multiproxy approach, using methods such as XRF, particle size analysis, and fabric analysis. I am also a multidisciplinary archaeologist and have a generalised knowledge of other archaeological fields. For my PhD I am pivoting into microarchaeology by using the technique of micromorphology to understand and contextualize the preservation of ancient DNA at the microscale at Upper Palaeolithic cave sites in Georgia.

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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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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

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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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Emily PIGOTT

I am a PhD student at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, The Higham lab. My background is in Archaeological Sciences, which I obtained a bachelor’s degree at the University of Bradford, before being a commercial archaeologist for a few years in England, Ireland and Germany. My master’s degree is from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in Paleobiology and Geobiology. My master’s thesis was concentrated on using microfossils and isotopes for further understanding the paleo-environment on Paleolithic sites in Lower Austria. My PhD with the Higham lab will involve using different dating techniques and methods to further understand hominins movements, interactions and extinctions in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic across Eurasia.

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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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