"The only alternative is that these Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were making repeated, long distance sea voyages between Malta and Sicily..." Find out how the Faculty's @jblinkhorn.bsky.social and colleagues solved the mystery of stone age hunters' maritime adventures.
Europe’s stone age hunters made sea voyages to Malta – thousands of years before evidence of sails
People reached the Mediterranean island at least 8,500 years ago.
theconversation.com
Artifacts show humans lived on Malta around 8,000 years ago. These Mesolithic hunter-gatherers likely made long-distance sea voyages to and from Malta from Sicily, according to a study of how many hunter-gatherers Malta could support. In PNAS Nexus: https://ow.ly/ecUz50ZwbeH
Our new theory article may be of interest to those studying technological complexity in archaeology and human evolution. It gives a historical perspective & introduces heterarchy as a 'new' perspective under which this phenomenon may be studied. Open access link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Blowing Leaves in Archaeology—The Multidimensionality of Technological Complexity in Human Origins Research - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
Technological complexity has been a continuous trope in archaeological research from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. Based on a concept of unidirectional cultural evolution, archaeological m...
link.springer.com
A short video explainer on our new paper; Neanderthals in the Desert! youtu.be/AHcaIbBG42g
Neanderthals in the desert!
YouTube video by Huw Groucutt
youtu.be
Dr Huw Groucutt@huwgroucutt.bsky.social · 3d agoGreat to see our new paper out; evidence for Neanderthals in Arabia! Time to stop imagining our hominin cousins as only being found in cold northern forests! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New paper klaxon! Neanderthals in the Desert? Our new paper suggests that Neanderthals may have been responsible for producing MIS 3 Middle Palaeolithic Levallois blanks in northern Arabia! Have a look at this: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Neanderthals in the desert? Population history best explains Middle Palaeolithic technological heterogeneity in Arabia
Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia present a rich record of hominin occupations between ca. 100 and 50 thousand years ago (ka) at a critical biogeogr…
sciencedirect.com
timesofmalta.com/article/malt... Using modelling techniques, the researchers concluded that Malta’s maximum population after the island’s land mass was separated from Sicily could have ranged from 144 to 170 individuals.
Malta’s first settlers survived through repeated sea voyages, study finds
Hunter-gatherers in Malta frequently sailed to Sicily to connect with a wider gene pool, researchers say
timesofmalta.com
New research led by the Uni's @jblinkhorn.bsky.social and colleagues has upended long-standing views about the maritime capabilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers. Evidence shows long-distance sea journeys taking place for at least a millennium. 🚣
Earliest Mediterranean long-distance sea journeys were sustained over at least a millennium - University of Liverpool News
Earliest Mediterranean long-distance sea journeys were sustained over at least a millennium
news.liverpool.ac.uk
Looking forward to returning to Latnija,Malta, in August - and our new modelling paper suggests forager occupations from 8.5-7.5ka were only possible through sustained, long-distance seafaring in the Mesolithic Mediterranean! (Image: (C) Huw Groucutt) academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
New paper: Mesolithic mariners in the Central Mediterranean made sustained, long distance sea journeys. Not accidents, one offs, and not rare events. See thread in the comments. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar..., led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social
1/5 Well over three years of work and I’m thrilled to see it out today in Science Advances: the cover feature no less! Using an innovative pipeline, we show that malaria shaped the spatial organization of human groups in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 74,000 years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Malaria shaped human spatial organization for the past 74 thousand years
Malaria has shaped human habitat choice, exchange, and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa.
science.org
#newpaper 🦟👣 We show how #malaria shaped human #distribution for the last 74k years www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to @margheritac17.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social and the whole gang (see below). A special shoutout to Martin & Ondrej Pelanek for the great cover pic 😍
Malaria shaped human spatial organization for the past 74 thousand years
Malaria has shaped human habitat choice, exchange, and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa.
science.org
🚨I couldn’t be happier to share that today I’m officially starting my own research group at the Human Origins Cluster of Excellence in Tübingen (@humanorigins.bsky.social)!🚨We’ll explore drivers of genetic, phenotypic and cultural evolution by integrating evidence from many fields in creative ways 🧬
Just published a paper on the lithics from Kabwe. We argue that they're indicative of MSA technology, although they can't be definitevely associated with the fossils. Might help better understand the origins of the MSA and its complex pattern across the continent. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Homo heidelbergensis and The Origins of The Middle Stone Age: The Kabwe (Broken Hill) Lithic Assemblage - African Archaeological Review
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) saw the emergence of novel behaviours in the archaeological record and is generally associated with our own species, Homo sapiens. Yet, most archaeological assemblages conta...
link.springer.com
Great to have been part of this team in the field and see the publication out!
Dr Huw Groucutt@huwgroucutt.bsky.social · 9mo ago(1/18) New paper alert, a thread! Just published in PLoS ONE, our study: “Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia”. Link: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
(1/18) New paper alert, a thread! Just published in PLoS ONE, our study: “Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia”. Link: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia
Knowledge about environmental change and the evolutionary history of hominins in Arabia has been rapidly developing over the last two decades. Interdisciplinary research on humans and environments acr...
journals.plos.org
There's still time to register for this week's talk, given by @professorlacy.bsky.social ! Sign up here: liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi... We hope to see you there!
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: UoL Evo Anth Seminar Series: Dr Sarah Lacy. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Please join us this week for a talk by Dr Sarah Lacy, University of Delaware, titled: 'Neanderthals Never Went Extinct: How we talk about, understand, and relate to deep history'
liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us
UoL EvoAnth Seminar Series@liverpoolevoanth.bsky.social · 10mo agoPlease join us next week, 9th October 2025, at 13:00 BST, for our next seminar of the semester. We will be joined by @professorlacy.bsky.social, University of Delaware - more details 👇 If you'd like to join, please register here: liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi... We hope to see you there!
Join us at the MPI-GEA or online for a free symposium on Quantifying Complexity in Stone Tools on the 21st of October! 🪨 With a keynote lecture by Charles Perreault. Full speaker list will be released soon! Secure your spot here: shh-cloud.gnz.mpg.de/index.php/ap...
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliquity expressed within the last precessional cycle. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...
nature.com
This project ended up taking the best part of 3 years 😅 Thank you very much to @margheritac17.bsky.social, @mikleonardi.bsky.social, @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, @elliescerri.bsky.social, Manuel Chevalier, Matt Grove, Andrea Pozzi and Andrea Manica from @eegcam.bsky.social for your hard work!!
Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/... We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊
More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies
Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...
cp.copernicus.org
New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.
Lucy Timbrell@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · last yr.Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/... We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊
New paper out, in collaboration with @jblinkhorn.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social and @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
Eleanor Scerri@elliescerri.bsky.social · last yr.New paper alert! Led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, we look at refugia for baboons in the Pleistocene and Holocene, offering a potential analogue for early hominins where climatic tolerances are shared. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
New paper alert! Led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, we look at refugia for baboons in the Pleistocene and Holocene, offering a potential analogue for early hominins where climatic tolerances are shared. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology
Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...
nature.com
Here it is, our case study on how to combine a century of deep (and building) archaeological knowledge around prehistoric social traditions with the new and exciting aDNA data, to help avoid interpretive pitfalls. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed the process of writing it 🎁
Penny Bickle@pennybickle.bsky.social · last yr.Who was NG10 and what was the world they lived in? The sister paper to our CAJ paper is now out in Antiquity and the cover image no less! Working on these papers with this group, has been one of the richest academic experiences I have had in my career. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years🏺🧪 Margherita Colucci, @ceciliapad.bsky.social, @elliescerri.bsky.social et al www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Humans avoided or unsuccessful in malaria hotspots. Effects of these choices shaped human demography for last 74 kya
Nice coverage of some our ongoing work at Latnija and our Island Legacies conference last week timesofmalta.com/article/latn...
Latnija cave discovery hailed as ‘world class’ by leading archaeologist
The discovery showed that Malta’s human history is at least 1,000 years older than previously thought
timesofmalta.com
🚨 NEW preprint🚨 Our latest study @HPS MPI-GEA @elliescerri.bsky.social & @eegcam.bsky.social models #malaria risk over the past 74,000 years revealing its powerful role in shaping human habitat choice and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa 🦟🌍 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years
The mechanisms driving the spatial organisation of early human societies in Africa are typically addressed through climate variables [1][1]-[3][2]. However, genetic and archaeological studies have als...
biorxiv.org
Palaeo folks, I was speaking with the production team recently and they said they are keen to feature more palaeontology stories. So if you are excavating/surveying this summer and think you might turn up something, drop them a line
Alice Roberts@profaliceroberts.bsky.social · last yr.If you’re doing an exciting dig, please get in touch - and we’re interested in post-ex stories too. This is a chance to showcase your work, your discoveries and your passion on BBC Two, sharing UK archaeology with wide audiences here and abroad. Contact us: digging@rare-tv.com
🚨NEW PAPER from the @eegcam.bsky.social!🚨I have never been as proud of something as of the work that finally we can share today: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - we show how a climatically driven Pan African meta population model explains our species genetic and morphological diversity 🧬💀
Pan-African metapopulation model explains Homo sapiens genetic and morphological evolution
Emerging evidence has challenged the traditional view of a single-region origin for Homo sapiens, suggesting instead that our species arose and diversified across multiple geographically distinct popu...
biorxiv.org
