3 postdoc open positions in our lab on a project developing new AI methods to integrate genetics and ecological data to predict the impact of global change on species - see below
Lucy Timbrell
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
Postdoctoral Researcher at MPI-GEA and Uni of Liverpool👩🏼💻 Interested in African archaeology, human-environment interactions and computational approaches to cultural evolution https://sites.google.com/view/drlucytimbrell/home
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
New opportunity: fully funded PhD position within the Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS Investigate experimentally the evolutionary significance of transformative Stone Age techniques in this project on cognitive demands, and explore the probability of their success. Deadline: 15 September 2026.
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
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
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
Lucky to work on this project with a great team of collaborators - particularly the Liverpool Computational Archaeology of the Stone Age Group www.liverpool.ac.uk/archaeology-... @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and Matt Grove @livuninews.bsky.social @livuniresearch.bsky.social
Computational Archaeology of the Stone Age (Liv-CASA) | Liverpool – Computational Archaeology of the Stone Age (Liv-CASA) | Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology | University of Live...
The Archaeology Research Cluster 'Liverpool – Computational Archaeology of the Stone Age' (Liv-CASA) brings together cutting-edge quantitative and computational methods to illuminate how early human p...
liverpool.ac.uk
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
Our preprint on modelling MIS 5 waterscapes in North Africa, led by the wonderful Solene Boisard @soleneboisard.bsky.social 😊 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reconstructing Prehistoric Waterscapes and Human Mobility during MIS 5 in North Africa
The spatial organization of early Homo sapiens populations in North Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5) remains a key question for understanding past demographic and cultural dynamics. Climat...
biorxiv.org
🚨🐵 Paid primate work: We are seeking a new camp and research coordinator for the Born To Be Wild Project; Tazekka National Park, Morocco: Details here (sadly due to funding constraints only available for EU, and potentially UK applicants at a push): groups.google.com/a/g-groups.w...
Could you join us? The University is looking for 10 exceptional and internationally recognised professors for our new 150th Anniversary Chairs. This is a unique opportunity to extend your research and grow UoL's global reach. All the details here ⤵️ #AcademicSky
Global call launched for exceptional academic leaders to shape future of the University - University of Liverpool News
Global call launched for exceptional academic leaders to shape future of the University
news.liverpool.ac.uk
📣 We have a new paper out in QSR on the high-resolution relationships between precipitation, vegetation, and fire across one precession cycle in the early Pleistocene in the Turkana Basin. Check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Rapid early Pleistocene climate, vegetation, and fire dynamics in the Turkana Basin
Rapid climate and ecosystem dynamics have been shown to affect evolutionary changes in hominins, including the development of stone tool technology. H…
sciencedirect.com
A 5-year PDRA position in "Statistical Modelling in Archaeology" is available @cam-archaeology.bsky.social as part of the FORAGER project. Deadline: 21/8/2026 tinyurl.com/muhcjkfy www.forager-erc.eu
Research Assistant/Research Associate in Statistical Modelling in Archaeology (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge
Research Assistant/Research Associate in Statistical Modelling in Archaeology (Fixed Term) in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.
tinyurl.com
We’re hiring a Research Assistant🚨 Interested in human evolution and African prehistory? We’re looking for someone with excellent organisational skills who will be based in Cambridge, with fieldwork opportunities in Kenya🇰🇪 Deadline: 01.07.2026 🔗 Apply online: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
Research Assistant in the Ng'ipalajem Project (Fixed Term)
Applications are invited for a 12-month Research Assistant position on the NG'IPALAJEM project, funded by the ERC. The project aims at collecting new palaeontological, archaeological and geological da...
cam.ac.uk
Next it's Mary Nyambura. Unfinished artefacts from Kilombe, Kenya, and their implications for manufacturing in the Acheulean. 🦣🏺#UTP26
We are very proud to share that Dr @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social from @livancworlds.bsky.social has a chapter in the new book, ‘HUMANS: The Evolution of a Species’ edited by @profaliceroberts.bsky.social. Lucy shares her expertise on the evolution of human technology 🔨
Archaeologist contributes chapter to latest book from Professor Alice Roberts - University of Liverpool News
Archaeologist contributes chapter to latest book from Professor Alice Roberts
news.liverpool.ac.uk
New paper alert: such a privilege to work with the amazing @elliescerri.bsky.social, @matejahajdi.bsky.social, and @chrisbstringer.bsky.social on a new review paper for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute: rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Malaria was fundamental in shaping the course of human evolution, @camzoology.bsky.social researchers have found. Between 74,000 and 5,000 years ago, early humans in Africa avoided high-risk malaria areas, shaping the population structure seen today. Read more 👉 https://bit.ly/4tUdOxe
Looking forward to this!
Dr Laura T. Buck@ltbuck.bsky.social · 3mo agoWe're excited to welcome @elliescerri.bsky.social for the next MENDLS lecture - 06.05.26 at the Uni of Liverpool. If you're around, please join us - see poster for details and sign up. @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social @jblinkhorn.bsky.social @phoebebakerrr.bsky.social @paddytkaczynski.bsky.social
🚨Fully funded PhD-position🚨 in our Genotype-Phenotype Evolution in Space (GPS) Lab. Interested in the question on how climate shape the movements, interactions, and evolution of hominin populations? Come work with us in Tübingen! uni-tuebingen.de/en/research/...
Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS
uni-tuebingen.de
We're excited to welcome @elliescerri.bsky.social for the next MENDLS lecture - 06.05.26 at the Uni of Liverpool. If you're around, please join us - see poster for details and sign up. @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social @jblinkhorn.bsky.social @phoebebakerrr.bsky.social @paddytkaczynski.bsky.social
Much like buses, wait a while for a paper on complexity and two come along at once! You can now see our paper revisiting Oswalt’s original data, with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social, @sarah-paris.bsky.social, and Gonzalo Linares-Matás! /1 www.isita-org.com/jass/Content...
isita-org.com
James Clark@jclark997.bsky.social · 4mo agoI am delighted to share our new paper on measuring complexity across the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic records, with an amazing team of co-authors - including the excellent @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @ceciliapad.bsky.social! Short 🧵 below /1 doi.org/10.1007/s108...
1/7 Our papers may seem to address different themes, but they coalesce around the deep human past as a process of niche expansion and feedbacks, into the transition to human dominated landscapes. A starting point was the pan-African structured theory of human origins: www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter?
We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils suggest that morpho...
cell.com
🦟 Out and on a shiny new cover of Science Advances: we use a novel approach to study malaria impact on early human groups - malaria wasn't just a threat, it shaped human habitat choice in sub-Saharan Africa in the past 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
Eleanor Scerri@elliescerri.bsky.social · 4mo ago1/5 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/...
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
New evaluation of the taxonomic affinities of the Late Pleistocene fossil hominin from Kabua, Kenya. Very happy to finally have the chance to finish and publish this work, nearly a decade after a very happy time in Tuebingen working on it with excellent colleagues. doi.org/10.1111/1467...
New preprint with Rafael Leite, Sandro Reia and Paulo Campos Cumulative Cultural Evolution in Structured Populations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... In which we take an old model of cumulative cultural evolution of mine and see what happens if you add social networks
Interested in Early Stone Age and Africanist Archaeology? Check out this doctoral research grant at @icarehb.bsky.social with @jonathanreeves.bsky.social in his project on Oldowan technology and Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution 🦴⛏️🦣🪨 euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/427576
Scientific Research Fellowship (BI) 014/2026
NOTICE NO. 014/2026 COMPETITION FOR THE AWARD OF A GRANT, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE RESEARCH GRANT REGULATIONS OF UNIVERSITY OF ALGARVE
euraxess.ec.europa.eu
I am delighted to share our new paper on measuring complexity across the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic records, with an amazing team of co-authors - including the excellent @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @ceciliapad.bsky.social! Short 🧵 below /1 doi.org/10.1007/s108...
The Tool Systems Approach: Measuring Complexity in the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic Records - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
Measuring technological complexity across species, as well as across temporal and spatial scales, is an ongoing challenge among authors who work on primatological, archaeological, and/or ethnographic questions. Researchers in these individual fields have developed a number of innovative ways of approaching this issue that reflect the specific affordances of their data with a known set of limitations. However, comparability between these approaches is often difficult. One such field-specific approach is the techno-unit method of Oswalt et al. (1976), which has had a massive impact on our interpretation of ethnographic technology over the fifty years since its publication. Nevertheless, this method has issues with its compression of variability and the different pathways to “complexity”. Here, we review a number of different ways technological complexity has been measured in non-human primates, the archaeological record, and modern human foragers, in order to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. We suggest that the approach deployed in any given study should continue to follow the data and research questions under consideration, but that we lack an easily-applicable method that allows explicit comparisons between fields of study. In this context, we introduce the Tool Systems Approach as one possible way of doing so, which decomposes tool manufacture into its constituent steps (i.e., Tool Systems Total) and discrete forms of action (i.e., Total Discrete Actions). We apply the approach to a number of different technologies across the three fields, to explore the practicalities of its application, as well as its limitations. Plotting these different technologies with regards to their maximum complexity through time reveals trends that may map onto important changes in cognitive evolution, which are also reflected in ever-growing variability in the complexity of individual artefacts. The ramifications for the study of technological complexity as a whole are discussed.
doi.org
Check out our latest paper in JAMT on measuring tool complexity across different contexts 👇🏼 Big thanks to @jclark997.bsky.social for leading this project!
James Clark@jclark997.bsky.social · 4mo agoI am delighted to share our new paper on measuring complexity across the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic records, with an amazing team of co-authors - including the excellent @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @ceciliapad.bsky.social! Short 🧵 below /1 doi.org/10.1007/s108...