Last week I went to a summer school organised by #PalaeOpen in Sofia🇧🇬: databases, quantitative #analysis, and lots of #networking. A very cool week! #research

🚨New paper just published! 📄 What drives #resilience and #sustainability in societies? Our paper reviews research in the #Mediterranean (1000 BCE–1000 CE) and explores how agent-based modelling can help test the mechanisms behind socio-ecological change 🌍 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Scales, Sources, and Simulations: Reviewing Studies on Human–Environment Interactions in the Mediterranean from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory

Understanding long-term human–environment dynamics is essential for contemporary debates on resilience and sustainability. This paper reviews approaches to studying humans and their environments in th...

link.springer.com

Gave my first lecture to research master’s students at Leiden University on using agent-based modelling to study past human–environment interactions 👩🏻‍🏫 Teaching is cool 😎

Just got back from a really interesting lecture on #diet in #humanevolution by @phytolith.bsky.social Lots to think about, and excited to be working on some of it right now! 🌱🍓🥦

It was great fun working on this with @calthalas.bsky.social @realhistoryguy.bsky.social @jmharland.bsky.social @dl-arch.bsky.social @vickymanolopoulou.bsky.social @sypianski.bsky.social @nikulinaav.bsky.social and others

SSE1K@sse1k.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Very happy to see this paper out, in which we explain that historians, just like scientists, have research methodologies which *must* be followed in order to do convincing palaeoclimate research using historical texts … link.springer.com/article/10.1... #environmentalhistory #environmentalscience

Nice feature on our recent work on neandertals (led by @nikulinaav.bsky.social) and their effects on their environment👣 deephistory.substack.com/p/the-neande... #neandertal #neanderthal #archaeology #anthropology #wilderness

The Neanderthal Garden: Landscape Engineering and the End of the "Pristine Wilderness" Myth

By Seth Chagi World of Paleoanthropology

deephistory.substack.com

Snow welcomed my Siberian soul on one of my first days in my new role as a postdoc and project manager at @unileiden.bsky.social Felt like #home ❄️

Over the past year, I worked at Durham University within @sse1k.bsky.social It was a real pleasure to be part of this team! I met wonderful colleagues and made great friends within the Department and the project. A new chapter begins for me this year, but the previous one was amazing💔

Last week I presented at #CAA #UK in Cambridge. It was exciting since these are our first modelling results from the @sse1k.bsky.social project. The presentation went really well, and I’m grateful to the organisers and everyone who made the #conference such a great experience. Photo credit: CAA UK

Came to Cambridge for a couple of days at CAA-UK 2025. Really looking forward to all the talks and discussions! #research #caa

On November 21, I became Dr. Nikulina. 13 years of study and hard work, including five wonderful years at Leiden University working on my dissertation. Дальше — больше! More to come! #PhD #PhDLife #research #nextchapterbegins

So happy to see that our work on the earliest #human impact on #landscapes ended up in #Weekendavisen, Denmark’s leading weekly #newspaper 🎉 🔗Read here: www.weekendavisen.dk/ideer/jaeger...

Fascinating new #research by @nikulinaav.bsky.social, who has recently joined @arcdurham.bsky.social. She used an innovative #AI approach to reveal how #Neanderthals shaped Europe's #landscapes. Read her @plosone.org paper: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... #archaeology @unileiden.bsky.social

On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared

Recent studies have highlighted evidence of human impact on landscapes dating back to the Late Pleistocene–long before the advent of agriculture. Quantifying the extent of vegetation transformations b...

journals.plos.org

Dr. Anastasia Nikulina@nikulinaav.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🔥Before farming, hunter-gatherers already transformed nearly half of Europe’s #landscapes via burning and hunting! Our new study using an #AI approach shows #Neanderthals began reshaping ecosystems; later foragers continued this process 👉 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... #Paleoecology #Anthropocene

📖 "On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared": un article co-écrit par F. Mazier de Geode, qui vient de paraître dans PLOS One ➡️ à lire ici : journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

🔥See our new paper led by @nikulinaav.bsky.social People shaped Europe’s #ecosystems long before farming 🦣#Megafauna effects on #vegetation openness dropped from 77%→57% bt #Eemian & #Mesolithic 🧑‍🦱Mesolithic people shaped up to 47% of landscapes w Neanderthals affecting 6–14% doi.org/10.1371/jour...

🔥Before farming, hunter-gatherers already transformed nearly half of Europe’s #landscapes via burning and hunting! Our new study using an #AI approach shows #Neanderthals began reshaping ecosystems; later foragers continued this process 👉 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... #Paleoecology #Anthropocene

On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared

Recent studies have highlighted evidence of human impact on landscapes dating back to the Late Pleistocene–long before the advent of agriculture. Quantifying the extent of vegetation transformations b...

journals.plos.org

How did #Neanderthals use #fire to hunt?🔥 Our new conceptual agent-based #model simulates their fire-driven hunting strategies around the Neumark-Nord site in Germany. Available here 👉 www.comses.net/codebases/86...

HUMLAND FIRE-IN-THE-HOLE agent-based model

HUMLAND Fire-in-the-Hole is a conceptual agent-based model (ABM) designed to explore the ecological and behavioral consequences of fire-driven hunting strategies employed by hunter-gatherers, specific...

comses.net

Many thanks to all who attended the first talk of our Online Seminar Series yesterday🌟Join us again on 10 November for Prof. Alessandro Fontana’s talk! 🔗 Register: www.tinyurl.com/sse1kseminarsrs

📢 SSE1K Online Seminar Series: People and their Environments in the First Millennium CE Join us on 14 Oct, 16:00 CEST when Prof. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Austrian Academy of Sciences) will talk “About volcanoes, icons, solar storms, and toads” 🔗 Register: tinyurl.com/sse1kseminars

🚨 New volume online! 🚨 This collection celebrates the outstanding career of Prof. Wil Roebroeks. 🔥 Our paper “Fire in the hole: a prototype agent-based model for studying #hunter-gatherers’ fire-driven #hunting” is part of the volume – take a look! 🐘 www.sidestone.com/books/intent...

Intent on the Paleolithic @ Sidestone Press

This collection of papers was compiled in celebration of the remarkable academic career of Professor Wil Roebroeks, who has established himself as one of Europe’s leading figures in Palaeolithic archa...

sidestone.com

New cool study on Corded Ware and Bell Beaker #burials shows fast apread across #Europe in many places at once and not from one big #migration www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Spatiotemporal reconstruction of Corded Ware and Bell Beaker burial rituals reveals complex dynamics divergent from steppe ancestry

Chronological modeling shows fast, polyfocal dissemination of Corded Ware and Beaker rites before rapid Pan-European convergence.

science.org

Postdoc Job! Come and work with me in Durham, and a bunch of @sse1k.bsky.social heroes in Venice and Basel, doing agent-based modelling of socio-environmental systems in the Ancient Mediterranean... durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

👋 #MeetTheTeam @nikulinaav.bsky.social Anastasia Nikulina is a postdoctoral researcher exploring human–environment interactions through agent-based modelling. She’s based at @arcdurham.bsky.social. Originally from the real #Siberia, Anastasia knows how (cold) weather shapes #human decisions.

Last week, I had the opportunity to be an invited respondent at @sse1k.bsky.social session on #resilience and the #environment at @imc-leeds.bsky.social in Leeds. My first time in this role! ☺️

Neanderthal "fat factory"! 🥩🔥 Last Interglacial #Neanderthals at Neumark-Nord (Germany) were fat engineers processing bones to extract grease 125,000 years ago. A large-scale operation long before the Upper #Paleolithic. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Thank you to everyone who joined our sessions at @imc-leeds.bsky.social! It was a pleasure to discuss different aspects of #environment and #resilience. Huge thanks to the organizers for putting together such a fantastic congress #IMC2025

Attending the International Medieval Congress in Leeds for the first time 😊 #IMC2025

Exciting papers at #IMC2025 from @sse1k.bsky.social SSE1K: Science, Society and Environmental Change in the First Millennium CE and friends today! @nikulinaav.bsky.social @danlawrence86.bsky.social