Lithic Technology

Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Members

Sarah Ann BENDER

Sarah Ann Bender is a University Assistant PraeDoc and doctoral candidate at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology in the Faculty Centre of Archaeology at the University of Vienna. Her research project investigates how Gravettian hunter-gatherers strategically organized their activities across large open-air sites in Eastern Central Europe during the increasingly severe climatic conditions leading into the Last Glacial Maximum. Through her work, she aims to better understand how these sites formed, how repeated occupations influence what is interpretable in the archaeological record, and how spatial patterns can inform our understanding of prehistoric behavioural flexibility and human resilience to climatic change.   Academic Education: PhD in Palaeolithic Archaeology, University of Vienna (Oct 2026 - present) MSc in Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University (Aug 2024 - May 2026) BA (Honors) in Anthropology; Certification in GIS, University of South Alabama (Aug 2018 - Dec 2023)  

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Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) Members

Caroline POSCH

Caroline Posch is a post-doctoral researcher and curator of the Stone Age Collection at the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW). She is specialised on the material culture and settlement strategies of the Alpine Mesolithic, with focus on landscape usage, raw material procurement strategies and lithic technology. Since 2022 she is a staff member of the NHMW. In her work, she focusses on the one hand on the curational practice as well as the scientific evaluation and study of various artefact types from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, including objects such as the Venus of Willendorf. One the other hand she is involved in several research projects centred on the first use and settlement of the Austrian Alps during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.    

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Timothy CANESSA

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.    

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Members

Viola SCHMID

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the research group Quaternary Archaeology at the Department of Prehistory & West Asian/Northeast African Archaeology of the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Since my master’s, I focus on lithic technological developments in the southern African Stone Age. In 2019, I finished my PhD on the C-A layers of Sibhudu Cave (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) in the light of the MSA lithic technologies in MIS 5 with "magna cum laude" in a joint doctoral programme at the Universities of Tübingen and Paris Nanterre. I started my Hertha Firnberg project ‘Time of essential changes in human history (TECH)’ in October 2022. The project concerns the analysis of lithic assemblages from three quasi-synchronous sites, Sibhudu Cave, Bushman Rock Shelter, and Rose Cottage Cave, in different biomes of South Africa. My aim is to gain a better understanding of the lithic technology, innovativeness and connectedness of past societies in South Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 5.    

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