Manuel Will
@manuelwill.bsky.social
Researcher in Paleolithic/African Archaeology & Paleoanthropology at University of Tübingen. Associate Editor Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manuel-Will
Excited to see 1st of the Evoluionary Human Sciences special issue on scientific racism come out! @kevinlala.bsky.social @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social @kztwyman.bsky.social & Marcus Feldman discuss impediments to countering racist pseudoscience & present 5 solutions www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core
Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience
cambridge.org
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
The #CfP for our session at @tag26exeter.bsky.social this year is still open for submissions! We would like to look at the social aspects of pottery making from all periods of time! Deadline is September 7th, 5pm BST! And don't forget to bring (apicture of) your favourite (prehistoric) mug!
Wonderful blog here from Haneul which aptly expresses why so many hunter-gatherer experts, at different career stages and with very different research programmes and theoretical perspectives/commitments, felt compelled to collaborate on the Meaning of MTH paper.
Haneul Jang@haneuljang.bsky.social · last mo.Happy to have contributed to the latest HBES newsletter on our recent paper, The Meanings and Dividends of Man the Hunter, led by @vivek123.bsky.social I reflect on MTH through the lens of my research on Bayaka women's foraging & cooperation in the Congolese rainforest www.hbes.com/revisiting-m...
🚨🦴🐦⬛The oldest fossil evidence for the Southern Bald Ibis at the archaeological site of Holley Shelter (otherwise known for its Middle Stone Age occupations) Fittingly presented to you by the journal OSTRICH! Get a free version here www.tandfonline.com/eprint/HGGGR...
Holley Shelter (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), a haven for breeding Southern Bald Ibises Geronticus calvus and other birds since the Late Pleistocene
Cliffs are attractive roosting and breeding localities for numerous birds, which develop diverse modes of interaction ranging from avoidance to competition, and predation of chicks in their nests. ...
tandfonline.com
A new ~2 Ma hominin cranium just discovered at the Drimolen hominin site in South Africa as part of a newly funded @arc-gov-au.bsky.social project to @ltuarchaeology.bsky.social @latrobe.edu.au and University of Johannesburg. The first year of joint Drimolen-Kromdraai excavations.
📚Special Issue alert📚: Contribute to "Above and Below the Sea: Coastal Ecosystems and Submerged Paleolandscapes in Prehistoric Archaeology and Marine Geology" to be published in Frontiers in Earth Science. Here is all the information www.frontiersin.org/research-top... #archaeology #coast #marine
Frontiers | Above and Below the Sea: Coastal Ecosystems and Submerged Paleolandscapes in Prehistoric Archaeology and Marine Geology
The settlement of coastlines and the use of marine food resources, often collectively referred to as coastal adaptations, feature prominently in global prehi...
frontiersin.org
P-RI Research Series! Today, we'd like to celebrate Drs Manuel Will and Matthias Blessing on their most recent article in Nature Communications. Please access the article via the QR code or link below: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thanks a lot for sharing, glad to be a part of UJ's Paleo-Research Institute and its stellar researchers!
UJ Palaeo-Research Institute@uj-palaeo.bsky.social · 3mo agoP-RI Research Series! Today, we'd like to celebrate Drs Manuel Will and Matthias Blessing on their most recent article in Nature Communications. Please access the article via the QR code or link below: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene🏺🧪 @manuelwill.bsky.social et al www.nature.com/articles/s41... Locality with uniquely preserved lithic assemblages with many refits dating from ~220 ka to ~110 ka for reduction and export of a single tool stone.
A nice News piece in @science.org on our recent article about Jojosi with comments by some colleagues (featuring @huwgroucutt.bsky.social among others!). www.science.org/content/arti...
Early humans turned favored rock sites into toolmaking assembly lines
Such prescient planning started 50,000 years earlier than thought, study finds
science.org
Our new paper exploring the measurement of complexity in tools - the result of significant and ongoing work, including that which emerged from our Complexity in Lithics Conference! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
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 ...
link.springer.com
Happy to be a part of this great new article on assessing and measuring complexity in archaeological, ethnographic and primatological contexts!
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias@ceciliapad.bsky.social · 4mo ago🚨🧪NEW PAPER!🚨 Led by the great @jclark997.bsky.social - We present the Tool Systems Approach: A method to calculate cultural complexity in a way that allows comparisons between the archaeological, ethnographic and primatological records, hence tackling big Qs in CE link.springer.com/article/10.1...
News from Jojosi!
Manuel Will@manuelwill.bsky.social · 4mo ago🚨 Publication alert🚨 Early humans in South Africa were quarrying stone as long as 220,000 years ago at the site of Jojosi @natcomms.nature.com - specialized, long-term use of a source of a raw material source in Stone Age Africa: Read the paper #openaccess here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Jojosi (Sudáfrica): los primeros humanos modernos explotaron durante decenas de milenios (220-110 ka) una misma fuente de materia prima (hornfels o corneana). Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene
Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene - Nature Communications
The authors here demonstrate that hominins were consistently and specifically procuring a single kind of raw material to make stone tools at the South African site of Jojosi between 220 and 110…
nature.com
🏺 🧪
Manuel Will@manuelwill.bsky.social · 4mo ago🚨 Publication alert🚨 Early humans in South Africa were quarrying stone as long as 220,000 years ago at the site of Jojosi @natcomms.nature.com - specialized, long-term use of a source of a raw material source in Stone Age Africa: Read the paper #openaccess here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Evidence from the Jojosi site in South Africa shows early humans deliberately quarried stone for toolmaking as far back as 220,000 years ago, indicating advanced resource planning. doi.org/hbv7v9
Early humans in South Africa were quarrying stone as far back as 220,000 years ago
As long as 220,000 years ago—far earlier than previously thought—people quarried rocks for their tools in places they specifically sought out.
phys.org
🚨 Publication alert🚨 Early humans in South Africa were quarrying stone as long as 220,000 years ago at the site of Jojosi @natcomms.nature.com - specialized, long-term use of a source of a raw material source in Stone Age Africa: Read the paper #openaccess here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene - Nature Communications
The authors here demonstrate that hominins were consistently and specifically procuring a single kind of raw material to make stone tools at the South African site of Jojosi between 220 and 110 thousa...
nature.com
I'm grateful to @gerda-henkel-stiftung.de for funding "The Jojosi Shelter Excavation Project – Understanding prehistoric land-use and raw material provisioning in southeastern South Africa". A great site that looked promising in test excavations 2025 & just next to open-air Middle Stone Age finds!
🚨Job alert!🚨 The Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS announces 2 junior Professor (W1) positions: A W1 Tenure track Professorship in Evolutionary Modelling (shorturl.at/FN102) and a W1 Professorship (non Tenure-track) in Primatology (shorturl.at/sH0Mk) Deadline: April 6 2026! Please share! 🔄
Fantastic paper and very exciting results. Small weight but much higher stature for Homo habilis than other individuals!
The Anatomical Record@anatrecord.bsky.social · 7mo agoKNM-ER 64061, most complete Homo habilis skeleton yet (Koobi Fora) shows primitive limb proportions: long forearms, thick cortices, small body mass & ~160 cm stature. Upper limbs like early Homo, but proportions differ from H. erectus Grine et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Christian Drosten erhält die Auszeichnung „Rede des Jahres 2025“ der #UniTübingen. Das Seminar für Allgemeine #Rhetorik zeichnet den Virologen für dessen Plädoyer für eine engagierte Wissenschaft aus: 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet/…
"Archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing", it was said. Arguably this focus on the ethnographic present is having a strongly negative impact on our understanding of the deep past. Some very useful thoughts on this topic in new paper by Kuhn and Stiner (link.springer.com/article/10.1...)
Blinded by the Light (of Modernity): Does the Concept of Modern Human Behavior Obscure Diversity in Hominin Cultural Evolution? - Biological Theory
Biological Theory - The remarkably durable construct of “modern human behavior” (MHB) is used by paleoanthropologists to summarize the features of behavior and underlying cognitive...
link.springer.com
Für Offenheit, Vielfalt und den freien Austausch von Ideen 🌍📚: Die Universität Tübingen beteiligt sich gemeinsam mit vielen weiteren Hochschulen an der Kampagne #HochschulenZeigenHaltung. 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet... #UniTübingen
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
I wonder if anyone ever got rejected from MDPI
Mark A. Hanson@hansonmark.bsky.social · 9mo agoWe wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear..... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@robertosaezm.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Early Oldowan technology thrived during Pliocene environmental change in the Turkana Basin, Kenya - Nature Communications
Here, the authors present archaeology of the Namorotukunan site in Kenya’s Turkana Basin that demonstrates adaptive shifts in hominin tool-making behaviour spanning 300,000 years and increasing enviro...
nature.com
Just finished my 100th review for a journal article - not sure if I should celebrate this anniversary or not 👀 #academia #reviewernumber2
Die @unileipzig.bsky.social, @maxplanck.de & @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social bauen ihre Zusammenarbeit in Forschung & Lehre aus: 5 gemeinsame Professuren & geplanter Master-Studiengang f. evolutionäre Anthropologie an der Fakultät f. #Lebenswissenschaften der Uni Leipzig. www.eva.mpg.de/de/presse/ak...
Evolutionäre Anthropologie: Gemeinsame Berufungen beschlossen, neuer Studiengang geplant
Universität Leipzig, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft und -Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie schließen Vereinbarung über gemeinsame Berufungen
eva.mpg.de