Mandl, K., Carlson, K.S., Brönnimann, D., McCall, A., Grassberger, M., Teschler-Nicola, M., Weiss-Krejci E., Metscher., B. 2022 Substantiating microCT for diagnosing bioerosion in archaeological bone using a new Virtual Histological Index (VHI) Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences read more
Susanna is a Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. She completed her PhD under Svante Pääbo on genomic insights into Denisovans and Neandertals of Denisova Cave. She joined the department in 2018 and has focused on a wide range of ancient DNA questions. She is particularly interested in ancient epigenetics and the effect of maternal behavior on methylation signals during gestation in ancient human populations. In 2023 she will begin a new project on human ancient DNA analyses from sediments.
Dehasque, M., Morales, H.E., Díez-del-Molino, D., Pečnerová, P., Chacón-Duque, J.C., Kanellidou, F., Muller, H., Plotnikov, V., Protopopov, A., Tikhonov, A., Nikolskiy, P., Danilov, G.K., Giannì, M., van der Sluis, L., Higham, T., Heintzman, P.D., Oskolkov, N., Gilbert, M.T.P., Götherström, A., van der Valk, T., Vartanyan, S., Dalén, L., 2024. Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome erosion prior to extinction. Cell 187, 3531-3540.e3513. read more
Andirkó, A., Moriano, J., Vitriolo, A., Kuhlwilm, M., Testa, G., Boeckx, C., 2022. Temporal mapping of derived high-frequency gene variants supports the mosaic nature of the evolution of Homo sapiens. Scientific Reports 12, 1-9. read more
van der Sluis, L.G., Zazzo, A., Tombret, O., Thil, F., Pétillon, J.M., 2023. Testing The Use Of Xad Resin To Remove Synthetic Contamination From Archaeological Bone Prior To Radiocarbon Dating . Radiocarbon, 1-16. read more
Baker, K.H., Miller, H., Doherty, S., Gray, H.W.I., Daujat, J., Çakırlar, C., Spassov, N., Trantalidou, K., Madgwick, R., Lamb, A.L., Ameen, C., Atici, L., Baker, P., Beglane, F., Benkert, H., Bendrey, R., Binois-Roman, A., Carden, R.F., Curci, A., De Cupere, B., Detry, C., Gál, E., Genies, C., Kunst, G.K., Liddiard, R., Nicholson, R., Perdikaris, S., Peters, J., Pigière, F., Pluskowski, A.G., Sadler, P., Sicard, S., Strid, L., Sudds, J., Symmons, R., Tardio, K., Valenzuela, A., van Veen, M., Vuković, S., Weinstock, J., Wilkens, B., Wilson, R.J.A., Evans, J.A., Hoelzel, A.R., Sykes, N., 2024. The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, e2310051121. read more
Strang, S., Köcher, T., van der Sluis, L., Chowdhury, M.P., Grabmayer, H., Douka, K., Binder, M., 2025. The bioarchaeology of tobacco use: An exploratory study of nicotine and cotinine detection in tooth dentine. Journal of Archaeological Science 180, 106301. read more
Weber, G.W., Šimková, P.G., Fernandes, D.M., Cheronet, O., Úry, E., Wilfing, H., Matiasek, K., Llano-Lizcano, A., Gelabert, P., Trinks, I., Douka, K., Ladstätter, S., Higham, T., Steskal, M., Pinhasi, R., 2025. The cranium from the Octagon in Ephesos. Scientific Reports 15, 943. read more
»The creative millennia: transition to the Neolithic in the central Zagros« Hojjat Darabi | Austrian Archaeological Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences; Department of Archaeology, Razi University The central Zagros received pioneering research on the emergence of early agricultural and village life by R. Braidwood in 1959-60. However, later shift of research toward the Levant put it in shadow for several decades until recent investigations have once again highlighted its key place in the Neolithization processes in west Asia. Unlike the Levant, where a protracted change from Epipaleolithic to Neolithic is seen, the border line between these two periods is evidently sharp in the central Zagros suggesting unprecedent features appeared in the first two millennia of the Holocene, a pivotal transitional time severely known in the region. Current evidence gained from the sites of Chogha Golan, Sheikhi Abad, Asiab, Ganj Dareh and a few others suggests that, following an environmental improvement at the end of the Younger Dryas, local communities engaged in short-term inhabitations, collective or communal ceremonies, and an increasing reliance on wild progenitors of early domestic plant and animal species. It is assumed that subsequent longer occupation towards sedentary life not only increased population numbers but also resulted in an environmental depression. This seems to have caused people to widen their diet toward low-level food production and subsequently agricultural village…
De Martino, M., De Cupere, B., Rovelli, V., Serventi, P., Mouraud, B., Baldoni, M., Di Corcia, T., Geiger, S., Alhaique, F., Alves, P.C., Buitenhuis, H., Ceccaroni, E., Cerilli, E., De Grossi Mazzorin, J., Detry, C., Dowd, M., Fiore, I., Gourichon, L., Grau-Sologestoa, I., Küchelmann, H.C., Kunst, G.K., McCarthy, M., Miccichè, R., Minniti, C., Moreno, M., Mrđić, N., Onar, V., Oueslati, T., Parrag, M., Pino Uria, B., Romagnoli, G., Rugge, M., Salari, L., Saliari, K., Santos, A.B., Schmölcke, U., Sforzi, A., Soranna, G., Spassov, N., Tagliacozzo, A., Tinè, V., Trixl, S., Vuković, S., Wierer, U., Wilkens, B., Doherty, S., Sykes, N., Frantz, L., Mattucci, F., Caniglia, R., Larson, G., Peters, J., Van Neer, W., Ottoni, C., 2025. The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago. Science 390, eadt2642. read more
Reitsema, L.J., Mittnik, A., Kyle, B., Catalano, G., Fabbri, P.F., Kazmi, A.C.S., Reinberger, K.L., Sineo, L., Vassallo, S., Bernardos, R., Broomandkhoshbacht, N., Callan, K., Candilio, F., Cheronet, O., Curtis, E., Fernandes, D., Lari, M., Lawson, A.M., Mah, M., Mallick, S., Mandl, K., Micco, A., Modi, A., Oppenheimer, J., Özdogan, K.T., Rohland, N., Stewardson, K., Vai, S., Vergata, C., Workman, J.N., Zalzala, F., Zaro, V., Achilli, A., Anagnostopoulos, A., Capelli, C., Constantinou, V., Lancioni, H., Olivieri, A., Papadopoulou, A., Psatha, N., Semino, O., Stamatoyannopoulos, J., Valliannou, I., Yannaki, E., Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Ringbauer, H., Caramelli, D., Pinhasi, R., Reich, D., 2022. The diverse genetic origins of a Classical period Greek army. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, e2205272119. read more
A new article co-authored by HEAS members Tom Higham and Katherina Douka sheds light on the Denisovan remains in Siberia. The team found and sequenced 5 new human bones using ZooMS dating back to 200,000 yrs in East Chamber. To read the article in full click here Press Coverage Anthropologie: Älteste Überreste des Denisova-Menschen - science.ORF.at
Blanz, M., Gröcke, D.R., Martin, P., Church, M., 2024. The effect of seaweed fertilisation on sulfur isotope ratios (δ³⁴S) and grain size in barley: Implications for agronomy and archaeological research. Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology 3, 1465082. read more
Manning, J., B. Fink., Mason, L., Kasielska-Trojan, A., Trivers, R., 2022. The effects of sex, nation, ethnicity, age and self-reported pubertal development on participant-measured right-left 2D: 4D (Dr-l) in the BBC internet study. Journal of Biosocial Science, 1-13. read more
Authors: Thomas Beard, Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger At the beginning of this year, from the 11th to the 12th of January 2024, the first ‘Geoarchaeology in Vienna’ workshop took place at the University of Vienna, generously funded by HEAS. Born out of the wish to connect and create a nexus between geoarchaeologists based in Vienna, the workshop was conceived and organised by Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger and Thomas Beard, all students within the University of Vienna. The vision for this kickoff-event was to get to know each other, establish connections, and lay the foundation for a network of geoarchaeologists in Vienna. Concerning Geoarchaeology It may have been noticed that, while there are a multitude of institutes of archaeological studies all over Vienna, there is no “Geoarchaeology” department per se. So, what is geoarchaeology then? Every geoarchaeologist has most likely been confronted with this question at some point - by members of the public, colleagues from other disciplines, colleagues from within geoarchaeology, or even by themselves. This may be closely tied to the inherently great diversity within the discipline, including many different specialisations that may, or may not decide to carry the label of 'geoarchaeology'. This often leads to 'missing out on each other' by attending vastly different conferences and different sessions within those conferences, but also being housed in quite diverse…
Lazaridis, I., Alpaslan-Roodenberg, S., Acar, A., Açıkkol, A., Agelarakis, A., Aghikyan, L., Akyüz, U., Andreeva, D., Andrijašević, G., Antonović, D., Armit, I., Atmaca, A., Avetisyan, P., Aytek, A.İ., Bacvarov, K., Badalyan, R., Bakardzhiev, S., Balen, J., Bejko, L., Bernardos, R., Bertsatos, A., Biber, H., Bilir, A., Bodružić, M., Bonogofsky, M., Bonsall, C., Borić, D., Borovinić, N., Bravo Morante, G., Buttinger, K., Callan, K., Candilio, F., Carić, M., Cheronet, O., Chohadzhiev, S., Chovalopoulou, M.-E., Chryssoulaki, S., Ciobanu, I., Čondić, N., Constantinescu, M., Cristiani, E., Culleton, B.J., Curtis, E., Davis, J., Demcenco, T.I., Dergachev, V., Derin, Z., Deskaj, S., Devejyan, S., Djordjević, V., Duffett Carlson, K.S., Eccles, L.R., Elenski, N., Engin, A., Erdoğan, N., Erir-Pazarcı, S., Fernandes, D.M., Ferry, M., Freilich, S., Frînculeasa, A., Galaty, M.L., Gamarra, B., Gasparyan, B., Gaydarska, B., Genç, E., Gültekin, T., Gündüz, S., Hajdu, T., Heyd, V., Hobosyan, S., Hovhannisyan, N., Iliev, I., Iliev, L., Iliev, S., İvgin, İ., Janković, I., Jovanova, L., Karkanas, P., Kavaz-Kındığılı, B., Kaya, E.H., Keating, D., Kennett, D.J., Deniz Kesici, S., Khudaverdyan, A., Kiss, K., Kılıç, S., Klostermann, P., Kostak Boca Negra Valdes, S., Kovačević, S., Krenz-Niedbała, M., Krznarić Škrivanko, M., Kurti, R., Kuzman, P., Lawson, A.M., Lazar, C., Leshtakov, K., Levy, T.E., Liritzis, I., Lorentz, K.O., Łukasik, S., Mah, M., Mallick, S., Mandl, K., Martirosyan-Olshansky, K., Matthews, R., Matthews, W., McSweeney,…
Doneus, M., Banaszek, Ł., Verhoeven, G.J., 2022. The Impact of Vegetation on the Visibility of Archaeological Features in Airborne Laser Scanning Datasets from Different Acquisition Dates. Remote Sensing 14, 858. read more
Rybin, E.P., Belousova, N.E., Derevianko, A.P., Douka, K., Higham, T., 2023. The Initial Upper Paleolithic of the Altai: New radiocarbon determinations for the Kara-Bom site. Journal of Human Evolution 185, 103453. read more
Gao, H., Hamp, T., Ede, J., Schraiber, J.G., McRae, J., Singer-Berk, M., Yang, Y., Dietrich, A.S.D., Fiziev, P.P., Kuderna, L.F.K., Sundaram, L., Wu, Y., Adhikari, A., Field, Y., Chen, C., Batzoglou, S., Aguet, F., Lemire, G., Reimers, R., Balick, D., Janiak, M.C., Kuhlwilm, M., Orkin, J.D., Manu, S., Valenzuela, A., Bergman, J., Rousselle, M., Silva, F.E., Agueda, L., Blanc, J., Gut, M., de Vries, D., Goodhead, I., Harris, R.A., Raveendran, M., Jensen, A., Chuma, I.S., Horvath, J.E., Hvilsom, C., Juan, D., Frandsen, P., de Melo, F.R., Bertuol, F., Byrne, H., Sampaio, I., Farias, I., do Amaral, J.V., Messias, M., da Silva, M.N.F., Trivedi, M., Rossi, R., Hrbek, T., Andriaholinirina, N., Rabarivola, C.J., Zaramody, A., Jolly, C.J., Phillips-Conroy, J., Wilkerson, G., Abee, C., Simmons, J.H., Fernandez-Duque, E., Kanthaswamy, S., Shiferaw, F., Wu, D., Zhou, L., Shao, Y., Zhang, G., Keyyu, J.D., Knauf, S., Le, M.D., Lizano, E., Merker, S., Navarro, A., Bataillon, T., Nadler, T., Khor, C.C., Lee, J., Tan, P., Lim, W.K., Kitchener, A.C., Zinner, D., Gut, I., Melin, A., Guschanski, K., Schierup, M.H., Beck, R.M.D., Umapathy, G., Roos, C., Boubli, J.P., Lek, M., Sunyaev, S., O’Donnell-Luria, A., Rehm, H.L., Xu, J., Rogers, J., Marques-Bonet, T., Farh, K.K.-H., 2023. The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates. Science 380, eabn8153. read more
Pigott, E.M., Uthmeier, T., Chabai, V., Higham, T.F.G., 2024. The Late Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic in Crimea (Ukraine)—A Review of the Neanderthal Refugium Hypothesis. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology 7, 27. read more
Weber, G.W., Lukeneder, A., Harzhauser, M., Mitteroecker, P., Wurm, L., Hollaus, L.-M., Kainz, S., Haack, F., Antl-Weiser, W., Kern, A., 2022. The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf. Scientific Reports 12, 2926. read more
Schauer, M., Siegmund, F., Helfert, M., Drake, B.L., 2024. The Munich Procedure–Standardising linear regression documentation in p-XRF research.Software Impact s, 100660. read more
Oertle, A., Szabó, K., 2022. Thermal Influences on Shells: an Archaeological Experiment from the Tropical Indo-pacific. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. read more
Mitteroecker P & Schaefer, K. (2022, invited, cover feature) Thirty years of geometric morphometrics: Achievements, challenges, and the ongoing quest for biological meaningfulness. American Journal of Biological Anthropology 178(S74): 181–210. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24531 read more
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology as part of Mareike Stahlschmidt’s team. I received my Masters degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. For my MSc I worked at the site of Border Cave, South Africa, using the geoarchaeological techniques of fabric and facies analyses to understand the formation of the upper portion of the archaeological sequence. I am a geoarchaeologist, with a specific interest in investigating micro- to macroscale cave/rockshelter site formation processes and employing a multiproxy approach, using methods such as XRF, particle size analysis, and fabric analysis. I am also a multidisciplinary archaeologist and have a generalised knowledge of other archaeological fields. For my PhD I am pivoting into microarchaeology by using the technique of micromorphology to understand and contextualize the preservation of ancient DNA at the microscale at Upper Palaeolithic cave sites in Georgia.
I am a palaeoanthropologist with a research focus on hominin dental morphology. Using a variety of methods, my research investigates the evolution of the hominin dentition, and explores the implications for important transitions in the course of human evolutionary history. I am particularly interested in the origins and evolution of the genus Homo, and have ongoing projects investigating internal dental structures in Homo habilis, Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis and Australopithecus sediba. My research uses microtomography to image internal tooth structures such as the enamel-dentine junction in fossil hominins, which can allow us to address questions that may not be possible from the outer surface of teeth. I also use geometric morphometrics to quantify the shape of teeth and bones. Currently I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the project ‘TOOTHROW’ – which aims to develop a novel methodological framework for the analysis of whole tooth rows using geometric morphometrics
Since 2017 I have been the head of the research group “Quaternary Archaeology” at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and group leader of the Krems branch. I am an expert for the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments, I am involved in extended international research networks and pursue the promotion of young scholars by teaching at the Institute for Prehistory and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. I also maintain public relations and was curator for several exhibitions in museums in Lower Austria. As the principal investigator of the excavation sites Krems-Wachtberg (2005-2015), Gösing am Wagram (2014) and Kammern-Grubgraben (since 2015) my research focusses on the Upper Palaeolithic in the Danube Region. My interest is to get as much information as possible about past human behaviour, settlement structures and settlement patterns, art and jewellery and stone tool inventories. For this purpose, I also focus on the prospecting of Palaeolithic find layers by means of pile-driven probing and experimental archaeology (reconstructions and models).
I am a doctoral student at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna investigating the variability of Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages in the Iberian Peninsula. My research project seeks to understand the drivers of this stone tool assemblage variability and its relationship to the idiosyncratic pattern of modern human settlement in the region. I am particularly interested in the connection between, on the one hand, mobility and lithic technological strategies and, on the other hand, the character and composition of these lithic artefact assemblages. As a corollary of this, I am exploring whether expedient technology was a feature of human occupation during this time and if this has any bearing on the “indeterminate” nature of some Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages.
Tobias Göllner investigates the peopling of Asia via genetic ancestry, population structure, demography and selection. Currently he works together with the Maniq, a primary hunter-gatherer community of Southeast Asia to uncover their genetic history, admixture, and archaic introgression. Further topics of investigation will be selection and adaptation to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the rainforest. (PhD Supervisors: Martin Fieder and Helmut Schaschl)
Tom Higham's inaugural lecture "Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens: How new science is changing our understanding of human evolution" took place on Monday, December 12, 2022, 5 p.m. in the Great Hall of the University of Vienna. A recording of the lecture is available on the University of Vienna Website here
As planned from the beginning, the HEAS leadership is now handed over from Gerhard Weber to Tom Higham from the 1st September 2023. Since its foundation two years ago, the Vienna research network HEAS has developed into a well-known player in the scientific landscape of human evolution and archaeological science. The University of Vienna, Austrian Academy of Science and the Natural History Museum Vienna have joint forces to study the biological and cultural evolution of humankind in a common framework. Our activities such as Seminar Series, Key Lectures, Seed Grants, Pecha Kucha, Workshops, YouTube channel and others will of course continue to bring together scientists from different disciplines and institutions for joint research efforts. More information on our YouTube channel here
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Archaeology on the 'Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World' (MIGMAG) project at the Institute for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna. My research uses archaeobotany and stable isotope analysis to understand the roles of farming in societal change in the prehistoric Mediterranean. For MIGMAG, I am investigating changes in land use and agricultural production strategies that may have accompanied mobility, demographic change and urbanisation in the Iron Age Mediterranean. I recently completed a DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, where I analysed archaeobotanical assemblages from Chalcolithic and Bronze Age western Anatolia.
Blanz, M., Stewart, S., Mainland, I., Ascough, P., Raab, A., Feldmann, J., Taggart, M.A., 2022. Trace element ratios in tooth enamel as palaeodietary indicators of seaweed consumption and coastal grazing, and their broader applicability. Journal of Archaeological Science 139. read more
Fieder, M., Danz, C., Deibl, J.H., 2023. Transformation of Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, An Account of Behavioural Biology on the “Concept of Religion”. Brill | Schöningh, pp. 111-117. read more
The famous 30,000-year-old Venus from Willendorf figurine will be the central theme of a new Universum episode which will be broadcasted on the International Women’s Day on 8th March 2022. Shooting also took place in the new “University Biology Building – UBB” in the Vienna µCT Lab.
Göllner T., Larena M., Kutanan W., Lukas H., Fieder M. , Schaschl H. , Unveiling the Genetic History of the Maniq, a Primary Hunter-Gatherer Society, Genome Biology and Evolution, Volume 14, Issue 4, April 2022 read more
Beneker, O., Molinaro, L., Guellil, M., Sasso, S., Kabral, H., Bonucci, B., Gaens, N., D’Atanasio, E., Mezzavilla, M., Delbrassine, H., Braet, L., Lambert, B., Deckers, P., Biagini, S.A., Hui, R., Becelaere, S., Geypen, J., Hoebreckx, M., Berk, B., Driesen, P., Pijpelink, A., van Damme, P., Vanhoutte, S., De Winter, N., Saag, L., Pagani, L., Tambets, K., Scheib, C.L., Larmuseau, M.H.D., Kivisild, T., 2025. Urbanization and genetic homogenization in the medieval Low Countries revealed through a ten-century paleogenomic study of the city of Sint-Truiden. Genome Biology 26, 127. read more
I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Environmental Geosciences (EDGE), University of Vienna. I completed my M.Sc. at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, where I studied clay chemistry and mineralogy to understand the formation of bole beds (clay-rich horizons) present in Deccan basaltic flows. My doctoral research is a part of the research platform MINERVA (Mineralogical Preservation of the Human Biome from the Depth of Time), a collaboration between EDGE and the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Vienna. In my doctoral research, I am focusing on understanding the roles of environmentally relevant minerals such as clays, iron oxides, hydroxyapatite and calcite in preserving the DNA against the common degradational agents such as nucleases, reactive oxygen species and ionizing radiation. My work will help develop a better understanding of the role of minerals in the long-term preservation of the human genome in the environment.
Mystery solved about the origin of the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf as new research method shows that the material likely comes from northern Italy The almost 11 cm high figurine from Willendorf is one of the most important examples of early art in Europe. It is made of a rock called "oolite" which is not found in or around Willendorf. A research team led by the anthropologist Gerhard Weber from the University of Vienna and the two geologists Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser... Read More
