Updates 2021

Environmental history points the way to the path of resilience. More information in German more

New study provides marine radiocarbon reservoir effect reference values for the study of chronologies in northern Iberia during the Early- to Mid-Holocene, between 9,000 and 7,500 years ago.
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A new perspective article published in a special edition of PNAS titled ‘Tropical Forests as Key Sites of the Anthropocene’ pairs Indigenous scholarship with palaeoecological, archaeological, geographical, and anthropological research from the global tropics to explore some of the key barriers posed by pervasive “wilderness thinking” for the conservation of some of the most biodiverse places on earth. more

A new study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences compiles ancient pollen records from a variety of settings in tropical southeastern Asia spanning the past 6,000 years more

A new study, published in PLOS ONE, reports the first long-term evidence for coastal engagement in eastern Africa more

Plant wax biomarkers are an innovative proxy for reconstructing vegetation composition and structure, rainfall intensity, temperature, and other climatic and environmental dynamics and are now incorporated in archeology and paleoanthropology to answer questions relating to past human-environment interactions and human evolution. more

A new study in Behavior Research Methods by a team of researchers in Germany presents the Database of Cross-Linguistic Norms, Ratings, and Relations for Words and Concepts (NoRaRe), an openly curated resource for interdisciplinary studies with data from psychology and linguistics more

New research shows that persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotones in southern Mexico provided critical ecologies for some of the first Pleistocene human arrivals through to the emergence of food production in this part of the world. more

A team of researchers have developed a new software called PyDamage to provide an automated approach for ancient DNA damage estimation and authentication of de novo DNA assemblies more

Soapbox Science Munich will host Dr. Yoolim Kim and other women scientists talking about their research at Max-Joseph-Platz on 24 July more

New study presents a novel device for sampling giant trees in remote tropical forest regions. more

Dr. von Baeyer has been awarded a fellowship to continue her ongoing research into human impacts on the environment along the ancient Silk Road. She is also studying the origins of arboriculture and the maintenance of forests in ancient Central Asia. more

A new article in PLOS ONE offers a novel method for illustrating stone tools, developed to allow researchers, students and educators to produce high quality, publishable illustrations more

The doctoral researchers of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) are happy to present the inaugural session of the summer school: Doorway to Human Science. All graduate and undergraduate students who want to discover new disciplines or expand their knowledge and skillsets are encouraged to apply. more

Researchers compare changes in the size and shape of ancient barley grains from Europe and Central Asia to understand and highlight the plausible drivers for population-scale change through time more

The Department of Archaeology (DA) welcomes Dr. Makarius Itambu to Jena. more

A new study reveals that ratios of magnesium and calcium derived from the limpet Patella depressa using LIBS, a cutting-edge methodological approach, serve as a high-resolution seawater thermometer, with significant implications for palaeoclimate and archaeological studies.  more

The group will review five years of research and discuss the use of archaeology, linguistics and genetics in triangulating the origins of Transeurasian languages in an upcoming lecture series more

Conservation approaches to rainforests in the Wet Tropics of Queensland must celebrate and protect both natural ‘Gondwanan’ heritage and the stewardship and cultural heritage of Aboriginal peoples. more

Pan-Ev is delighted to welcome Dr Niang, whose expertise in West African Stone Age lithics will contribute towards unravelling the deep human past in this important region. more

In a new study, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History led a team that re-discovered how ancient people made beads from giant land snails, and found that the origin of this practice is thousands of years older than previously believed. more

How records of past human-primate interactions can inform conservation efforts more

The discovery of 120,000-year-old human, elephant and horse footprints near an ancient lakebed on the Arabian Peninsula changed what we know about what the world was like, and where our ancestors were, deep in prehistory more