About

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Magdalena BLANZ

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) and the Austrian Archaeological Institute, where I work on stable isotope ratios of bioarchaeological remains. Originally trained as an environmental analytical chemist, my interests have always been in analysing archaeological remains. For my PhD I focussed on the identification and interpretation of seaweed consumption by terrestrial mammals in archaeological contexts. During my postdoc, I am researching the first introductions of domesticated animals and plants into Europe, focussing on dietary patterns and plant growth conditions. I am particularly interested in method development and acquiring modern reference data for stable isotope ratio studies.

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Marjolein D. BOSCH

I am a Palaeolithic zooarchaeologist investigating a range of hominin behaviours through the lens of zooarchaeology including, organic technology, habitat exploitation, mobility and subsistence strategies. I am a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna and an associated scientist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute and the NHM Vienna. After formal training in zooarchaeology at Leiden University, I have specialised in human-animal interactions and dietary adaptation across East Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe throughout the Pleistocene. My research further focusses on innovative ways to study organic technology including beads and personal ornaments, domestic tools and projectile technology. I obtained my PhD at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and Leiden University and held post-doc positions at Cambridge University and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.  

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Olivia CHERONET

I am a post-doctoral researcher in the department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna, and the lab manager of Ron Pinhasi's ancient DNA lab. Following an undergraduate training in Paleobiology and a PhD in physical anthropology, I have a particular interest in using this knowledge to improve and optimise ancient DNA sampling methods, by making them more efficient and less destructive to invaluable archaeological skeletons.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Members

Jessica Mendes CARDOSO

She holds a doctorate in Archaeology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a doctorate in Geosciences from the University of Toulouse, France. Her research focused on the geochemical applications of isotope analysis in archaeological materials, primarily human and faunal bones and teeth, to reconstruct diet and determine the geological provenance of pre-colonial coastal Brazilian populations. She has extensive experience in zooarchaeology, particularly in South American Brazilian shellmounds, which was the focus of her bachelor's and master's research. She has worked as an archaeologist in several preventive archaeology projects, gaining experience in both field and laboratory work, as well as cultural heritage education. She was also one of the creators of Sambaquis: A History Before Brazil, the first Brazilian archaeology-themed game. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC Starting Grant HUE project, working in the new geochemical laboratory with mass spectrometry and isotope analysis of ancient pigments.

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Manasij Pal CHOWDHURY

I am an archaeological scientist specialising in paleoproteomics, primarily focusing on the recovery and analysis of proteins from archaeological bones and ceramic remains. I am interested in the use of proteomics to understand a range of archaeological questions, including faunal identification, the exploitation of various natural resources, ancient diet and diseases, and how ancient diet and patterns in resource consumption can be used to study socio-economic stratification and various forms of inequality and social structure in antiquity. I am also interested in the various post-translational modifications in proteins as a result of the various diagenetic processes involved, and the study of the fundamental processes involved in the preservation of proteins in archaeological substrates. A chemist by training, I graduated from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi with a BSc Hons. degree in Chemistry and was awarded a MSc in Chemistry from The University of Manchester. In 2023, I completed my PhD in Bioarchaeology from the University of Manchester, and am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Douka Paleoproteomics and ZooMS laboratory in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna.

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Martin FERA

I specialize in archaeological prospection and cultural heritage documentation, with extensive experience in interdisciplinary projects across Europe and North Africa. My roles include serving as technical field director for the long-term VIAS project at the Bronze and Iron Age settlement in Schwarzenbach and overseeing fieldwork at a New Kingdom pharaonic town and cemetery on Sai Island, Sudan.   In international collaborations, I have contributed to pioneering new methods in landscape archaeology, focusing on remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS). I aim to integrate geoarchaeological methods, bridging the micro and macro scales from landscape analysis to detailed excavation work. As a lecturer at the University of Vienna, I teach courses in geomatics and data management, equipping students with essential skills for modern archaeological research.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Bernhard FINK

Bernhard Fink received his PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Vienna (Austria). He then moved to the University of Göttingen (Germany) where he held prestigious grants from the German Science Foundation (DFG) to investigate the social perception of human facial/body morphology and body movements, such as dance and gait. His work comprises the study of cross-cultural similarities and differences in human social perception, including research in pre-industrialized (small-scale) societies. Bernhard has worked extensively on digit ratio (2D:4D), a supposed proxy for prenatal androgenization. Together with John Manning (Swansea University), he examines 2D:4D relationships with sex-dependent traits across nations in a large sample from the BBC internet study.

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Roland FILZWIESER

Roland Filzwieser is a postdoctoral researcher in archaeological prospection, landscape archaeology, medieval history, and digital humanities at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS). He is specialized in geophysical prospection and digital documentation methods in combination with historical written and cartographic sources

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Thomas DAVIES

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

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Members

Hannah Stephanie ROHRINGER

I am a palaeolithic archaeologist specialised on human-environment interactions and lithic technology. My primary regions of study are the Levant and lately also central Europe, where I focus on homo sapiens settlement patterns, mobility, lithic technology and raw material use. I have studied at Cologne University in Germany until my PhD in 2019 on Levantine Upper Palaeolithic settlement patterns. From there I spend two years at the Rhenish Heritage Management focusing on copy editing and public relations. Then I moved to Israel for a Postdoc at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem, where I studied Levantine Aurignacian Carinated cores before spending another two years at the Department of Bible Studies, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. There I had a number of projects on Upper Palaeolithic flint raw material use. Since 2022 I am at the Austrian Academy of Science in the research group Quaternary Archaeology. Lately my projects focus on Lower Austria, the well-known site of Kammern-Grubgraben and my new site of Gobelsburg-Rossgraben, where we found a mammoth-killsite in a wine cellar.  

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Cinzia FORNAI

I am an evolutionary anthropologist and morphometrician by training, with consolidated experience in Dental Anthropology. Over the course of my PhD program in Biology through the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna (concluded in 2015), I have specialized in the use of virtual image techniques and geometric morphometrics for the exploration of hominin dental variation (http://othes.univie.ac.at/38865/1/2015-07-11_0963308.pdf). My postdoctoral research through the within the Evolutionary Morphology group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, focused on the evolutionary aspects of human birth and the investigation of the pelvis in hominoids. Currently affiliated with the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, I continue research in Dental Anthropology, while being the scientific coordinator of the Vienna School of Interdisciplinary Dentistry www.viesid.com, where I focus on topics relevant to oral medicine such as functional morphology of the stomatognathic system and its clinical implications.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Meriam GUELLIL

I am an expert in ancient microbial phylogenomics and metagenomics, particularly of human pathogens. I am particularly interested in the study of diseases that are invisible in the archaeological and osteological record, and the study of their evolution throughout human history. My previous research includes studies on microbial species such as Yersinia pestis, Haemophilus influenzae, Borrelia recurrentis and Herpes simplex 1. The focus of my laboratory work is the design of target enrichment strategies and kits, as well as their applications. Computationally, I have developed workflows for pathogen detection in ancient DNA datasets and work on developing analytical frameworks to reconstruct ancient genomes and maximize the information they can give us when studied within modern diversity. I was awarded a BA in Prehistoric Archaeology from the University of Vienna, an MSc in Human Osteology from the University of Sheffield and a PhD in Genomics from the University of Oslo. I joined the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna in September 2022 as an ESPRIT FWF project leader and senior postdoctoral researcher.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Tom HIGHAM

Head

  I am a Professor of Scientific Archaeology in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Prior to coming to Vienna in August 2021 I was the Director of the University of Oxford’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. My research focuses on developing and improving the radiocarbon method and applying it to the dating of archaeological sites, especially those dating to the Palaeolithic period.

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Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) Members

Nicole GRUNSTRA

I am an evolutionary anthropologist and morphometrician. I obtained a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and am currently based at the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Vienna as an ESPRIT fellow. I am interested in which sense the human lineage is unique and in which sense we are “just another unique species.” Central to my research, therefore, is placing human evolution in a wider comparative and theoretical biology context. I study complex traits such as the pelvis, cranium, inner ear, and the entire dentition. Currently, my main research focus is on the study of evolutionary trade-offs in the human and non-human placental mammalian pelvis in pursuit of understanding what constrains human pelvic canal size and flexibility, leading to a tight fit and difficult childbirth (an "obstetrical dilemma"). I lead an FWF-funded project devoted to this question, in which I aim to disentangle the relative contributions of reproduction, locomotion, posture, body mass support, and phylogenetic heritage in hard and soft tissue anatomy of the mammalian, including human, pelvis.  

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Ron PINHASI

Deputy Head

Dr. Ron Pinhasi  is the Head of the Ancient DNA Lab. His research focuses on human evolution including fieldwork projects on the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Caucasus. He held an ERC Starting Grant project (2011-2015) that focused on human genetic history, migrations and admixture, and developed the widely-used ancient DNA optimisation method from the petrous bone.

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Team Leaders

Immo TRINKS

Deputy Head

I am a geophysicist interested in innovative research into efficient, high-resolution, geophysical prospection and digital documentation methods and their application to geosciences, archaeology and engineering problems. I am motivated by the potential of new techniques permitting the imaging of subsurface structures in unprecedented resolution, revealing hidden man-made and natural treasures. I enjoy sharing insights, findings and know-how with colleagues, students and the interested public.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Team Leaders

Barbara HOREJS

Deputy Head

I am Professor for Prehistory and Scientific Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where I am heading the Department for Prehistory & WANA Archaeology. My research focuses on late Pleistocene to Holocene phenomena in Southeast Europe and West Asia with excavations and geoarchaeological surveys to produce, analyse and model new primary data of early communities and their environmental contexts. I enjoy working with interdisciplinary teams of students, ECR’s and experts to gain new insights into neolithization, intensification & centralisation.    

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Dominik HAGMANN

Dominik Hagmann is currently working on several projects, primarily focusing on Roman archaeology in Austria, and is a lecturer at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (University of Vienna). Since 2023, Dominik has been a principal investigator in the ÖAW-funded Go!Digital 3.0 long-term-archiving project IUENNA at the kärnten.museum, together with his colleague Franziska Reiner (ÖAI). In 2022, he obtained a Ph.D. degree (with honors) from the University of Vienna (Doctoral School for Cultural and Historical Studies) on his thesis "Roman Rural Landscapes in Noricum. Archaeological Studies on Roman Settlements in the Hinterland of Northern Noricum." As an archaeologist, Dominik focuses on Roman studies in terms of settlement and landscape archaeology in the Danube Basin, implementing state-of-the-art digital and interdisciplinary methods in his research. He participated in numerous field campaigns in Central and Southern Europe and the Middle East during third-party-funded international and national research projects.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Katharina REBAY-SALISBURY

Deputy Head

Katharina Rebay-Salisbury is professor of Prehistory of Humanity at the University of Vienna and directs the research group ‘Prehistoric Identities’ at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Enthusiastic about the European Bronze and Iron Ages, her research focusses on combining interdisciplinary approaches for insights into people’s lives, identities and social relations in prehistory. Her current research explores themes such as sex and gender, motherhood, kinship, mobility and migration through ERC and FWF-funded projects analyzing burial contexts and human remains from Central Europe.

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Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) Team Leaders

Robin GOLSER

Management Board

Robin Golser is head of the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA), a dedicated facility for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) at the University of Vienna. VERA is used for ultrasensitive radioisotope analysis including radiocarbon dating. Robin’s research interests lie in opening totally new avenues for AMS such as the world-wide unique Ion Laser Interaction Mass Spectrometry system and applications in Astrophysics.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Sojung HAN

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Admixture Genomics group. My primary interests are understanding the evolutionary history and the genetic background of species-specific traits of primates, in particular of chimpanzees and bonobos, the closest extant species of humans. I am using bioinformatics approaches, and am trying to investigate not only the host genomic materials but also pathogens and environmental context in this endeavor.

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Department of Environmental Geosciences (EDGE) Team Leaders

Stephan M. KRAEMER

Management Board

Stephan Kraemer is the head of the Department of Environmental Geosciences at the University of Vienna and co-founder of the MINERVA (Mineralogical Preservation of the Human Biome) research platform. He is a low temperature geochemist interested in molecular scale bio-mineral interactions. A particular focus is the reactivity of biogenic molecules including ligands, reductants, enzymes and nucleic acids at mineral surfaces. His research interests include interactions of DNA with mineral phases in the context of long-term eDNA and aDNA preservation. He uses stable isotopes including strontium, mercury and other transition metals as process- and forensic tracers. His laboratory includes a MC-ICPMS isotope lab, trace metal analytics and spectroscopic facilities and methods for mineral characterization. After studying Earth Sciences at Ruhr Universität Bochum, he obtained his PhD in 1997 under the guidance of Prof. Janet Hering (CALTECH) and held positions at UC Berkeley and ETH-Zürich before moving to Vienna in 2006.

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Anne LE MAÎTRE

I am a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Vienna, and part of Philipp Mitteröcker's research group. Following a generalist training in natural sciences, including geosciences and palaeontology, I did a PhD in palaeoanthropology. I study the evolutionary processes underlying vertebrate morphology, particularly the primate skull, and I am currently working on different aspects of ear evolvability in mammals and birds. I am also interested in the development of morphometric and statistical methods, especially in relation to geometric morphometrics.

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Department of Palaeontology (PAL) Team Leaders

Doris NAGEL

Management Board

My research focuses on mammal evolution and ecological niche development especially in carnivorous animals. The different aspects include food preference (microwear methods), locomotion adaption and population development (in co-operation with Michael Hofreiter, DNA-lab, Univ. Potsdam and the Radiocarbon lab in Mannheim). Current projects focus on niche development of Miocene carnivores and climate adaptions of mammals in the Upper Pleistocene (Teufelslucke).

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Team Leaders

Martin STESKAL

Management Board

Martin Steskal is Head of the Department of Historical Archaeology at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the OeAW and Director of the excavations of Ephesos. He is a trained classical archaeologist with a research focus on Mediterranean archaeology. He has been studying the mortuary landscape and practices in Ephesos for many years and is trying to reconstruct the living environment of the inhabitants of one of the great ancient metropolises. His research includes archaeological, historical and scientific methods. In addition to his work at the OeAW, he is also a lecturer at the University of Vienna.  

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Xin HUANG

I am an evolutionary biologist and has been working on method development for solving different problems with population genomic data, including detecting positive selection, estimating strength of natural selection, quantifying time-varying selective pressures, inferring the distribution of fitness effects, and detecting archaic admixture. I will continue to investigate many other interesting topics in the future.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Constanze SCHATTKE

Constanze Schattke is a bioarchaeologist who studied biology and evolutionary anthropology in Kiel, Mainz, and Vienna. Her professional expertise includes ancient DNA and paleopathologies as well as the history of anthropology. Her current research focus is on the interconnection of different fields such as history and bioarchaeology to study the provenance of human remains in osteological collections. Here, she has worked together closely with communities from New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego, Chile. One of her main objectives is to help strengthen Indigenous’ identities through the careful study and analysis of ancestral human remains. Since 2021, Constanze is a PhD student in the Vienna Doctoral School of Ecology and Evolution. Her interdisciplinary dissertation focuses on different contexts of violence found in osteological museum collections at the Natural History Museum Vienna, Department of Anthropology. Here she will combine bioarchaeological and forensic methods with historical approaches to create a comprehensive picture of collections with diverse provenance. To that end, she also looks at what constitutes a museum object, how human remains fall into that category, and how to deal with such legacies in a conscious and responsible manner.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Ana M. HERRERO CORRAL

Dr. Ana M. Herrero Corral is a Marie-Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Prehistory and WANA Archaeology, of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. She has a master's degree in Physical Anthropology and a PhD in Prehistory from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her main research focuses on the social role that children of recent prehistory would have within their communities through the bioarchaeological analysis of the funerary record. During her Marie-Curie project she will explore biological and non-biological kinship relationships between children and adults buried together in multiple graves of recent prehistory Iberia. Since 2017 has been part of the Humanejos research project, one of the most important cemeteries of the III and II millennium BC in Iberia, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Out of an output of over 30 academic publications, those more relevant include: Herrero et al. 2019 The Inheritors: Bell Beaker Children’s Tombs in Iberia and their Social Context, Cintas and Herrero 2020 Missing prehistoric women? Sex ratio as an indicator for analyzing the population of Iberia from the 8th to the 3rd millennia B.C, or the recently published book (Herrero 2022) Bioarchaeological analysis of child burials from the III and II millennium BC in the upper and middle basins of the Tagus.

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Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) Team Leaders

Katrin VOHLAND

Management Board

Dr. Katrin Vohland is Director General of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHM Vienna), Austria. Her main research interest is in the interface between science and different public audiences including policy. She develops Open Science strategically for the museum and beyond, including Citizen Science where she is active to employ integrative and reflective approaches.

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Emily J. KATE

Emily J. Kate is bioarchaeologist specializing in radiocarbon dating, isotopic studies of paleodiet and migration, human osteology and paleodemography, and has worked with projects from Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and in Europe. Her interests include the manner in which paleodietary variation and changing trends can be used to assess shifts in social structure, political organization, and resilience, the effects of long-distance migration on the social and political landscape of societies, and the refinement of regional chronologies through targeted radiocarbon programs and Bayesian modeling. Emily is currently the Project Coordinator for the ERC funded SUSTAIN project at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science and is also an editor for the Cambridge University Press book series, Elements in Ancient and Premodern Economies.

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Tom MALTAS

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.

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Daniel FERNANDES

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Ron Pinhasis's group, in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Vienna. My expertise is the paleogenomic analysis of ancient human populations, specifically targeting ancestry determination, phenotypic assessment, admixture simulations, and societal organisation using kinship. Complementary interests and work areas involve the development and use of bioinformatic tools and pipelines for various genomic analysis, specifically for kinship estimation, as well as the development of ancient DNA laboratory methodologies and protocols for improved bone sampling and endogenous DNA separation.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Lumila Paula MENÉNDEZ

I am a biological anthropologist specialized in human evolution and biocultural diversity in the Americas. I was born in Argentina, where I also conducted my studies and most of my training. Currently, I am leading two projects, one funded by the German Foundation for Scientific Research (DFG), aims to study cranial variation in individuals from South America, for evaluating the role of evolutionary and ecological factors during the human diversification across the whole Holocene; and the other, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), points to validate virtual anthropology protocols for contributing in the forensic human identification in Mexico. To tackle these issues, I apply imagining techniques, geometric morphometrics methods, as well as multivariate statistics, and I work interdisciplinary collaborating with archaeologists, geneticists, forensic experts, biologists, linguists, and philosophers of science.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Members

Annette OERTLE

I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Douka Palaeoproteomics and ZooMS laboratory in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. As an archaeological scientist (zooarchaeologist) I specialise in collagen peptide fingerprinting (ZooMS) and archaeomalacology. My research interests lie in tropical, coastal and island archaeology with particular focus on Australia, the Pacific Islands and Island South East Asia (ISEA). I am interested in questions regarding human evolution, changes in subsistence behaviours, and site formation processes. I completed my PhD in 2019 from the University of Sydney, Australia, and was a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC FINDER project based at the Max Planck Institute SHH Jena, Germany. I am currently a Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow leading project DENI-CESTOR (DENIsovan anCESTORs in Sahul: deciphering human evolution through molecular techniques) and PI on a Leaking Foundation Grant (Using ZooMS to identify new human fossils in archaeological deposits in Papua New Guinea). Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2024) Principal Investigator: Leakey Foundation Grant (2022-2023)

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Core Facility for Micro-Computed Tomography (Vienna Micro-CT Lab) Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Gerhard WEBER

Management Board

  I’m the head of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, the Vienna µCT Lab, and the research network “HEAS”. My interest is to get as much information as possible about functional morphology from fossils and osteological material. I contributed especially to the development of Virtual Anthropology and evolutionary research regarding modern humans and Neanderthals. Recently, I’m also concerned with applications in archaeology or orthodontics.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Team Leaders

Michael BRANDL

I am a Prehistoric archaeologist, geo-scientist and coordinator of the Archaeological Sciences at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the ÖAW. My research focusses on lithic raw material economy and questions relating to past human behaviour. For this task, I develop innovative protocols for provenance analyses of lithic raw materials and economic models. My geographical and chronological frame is broadly laid out to achieve a large comparative database and enable intercultural comparisons. Consequently, I am involved in extended international research networks and pursue the promotion of young scholars.   Publications Michael Brandl

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Team Leaders

Birgit BÜHLER

Birgit Bühler was educated at the University of Vienna, Austria (Pre- & Protohistoric Archaeology: M.A. in 1998, PhD in 2002; Evolutionary Anthropology: MSc in 2020), specializing in Early Medieval Archaeology. Since 2000, she has been employed (part-time) at Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS), focusing on the technology of precious metalwork from prehistory to the Middle Ages.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Team Leaders

Laura DIETRICH

I am an archaeologist in the Department Prehistory and WANA Archaeology at the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and Associate Professor at the Free University of Berlin, Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology. I specialize in functional studies on stone tools and object biographies, with a focus on functional morphometric, use-wear and residue analyses, and experimental archaeology. My research focuses on Southwestern Asia to Central Europe, from Epipaleolithic to the Bronze Age, especially on the Neolithic and the process of the Neolithization.  

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Michael DONEUS

Michael Doneus is professor for landscape archaeology and Head of the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology of the University of Vienna. He is specialized in archaeological prospection with a focus on methodological development of remote sensing techniques and integrated data interpretation. He was director of the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (2012-2013) and deputy director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (2010-2017).

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Team Leaders

Nives DONEUS

I am an archaeologist at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Sciences (VIAS) focusing on the archaeological prospection of Roman landscapes. The joint interpretation of data from different prospection techniques makes it possible to go beyond the archaeological sites to record landscape history and trace the many facets of human life. The diachronic investigation of human land use is particularly exciting here, as it shows the interaction between humans and the environment, in particular the modification of the natural environment to meet the needs of habitation, infrastructure or agriculture.    

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