Palaeolithic Archaeology

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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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

José-Miguel TEJERO

José-Miguel Tejero is an archaeologist specialising in Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies and their osseous raw material exploitation. He is currently Ramón Y Cajal Program Senior Researcher at the University of Barcelona (Spain) and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Vienna. His current research, funded by the FWF, focuses on bone and antler hunting weapons and their significance in adaptative environmental strategies of the first anatomically modern humans colonising Eurasia by combining archaeological, palaeogenetic, palaeoproteomics, and radiodating methods. His work also involves the bone equipment of the Western-European societies at the late Upper Palaeolithic (Magdalenian) and the last Levantine hunter-gatherer groups, beginning to practice the sedentarism (Natufian). He is the research leader of the interdisciplinary and international team for the study and publication of one of the most critical Near East Natufian sites: Einan–Ain-Mallaha (Jordan Valley, Israel), funded by the Shelby White and Leon Levy Foundation.

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