MINERVA

The Marie Sklodowska-Curie project ‘Mid-Pleistocene environments of the lower Vaal river‘ (MINERVA) is exploring the adaptation of early Homo sapiens to changing environment and prey choices in the arid interior of southern Africa through synthesis of isotopic, zooarchaeological, geomorphological and lithic data sets recovered from excavations at Pniel, and comparison to archaeological sites of similar age in the region.

Project Twitter Account (@MINERVA_MSCA) now closed.

Project duration: May 2019 – April 2021

Principal Investigator: Dr. Michaela Ecker

Major collaborators: David Morris, McGregor Museum Kimberley and Sol Plaatje University Kimberley, South Africa & Co-permit holder; Lloyd Rossouw, National Museum Bloemfontein, South Africa; Chris Green, University of Oxford, UK; Hilary Duke & Michael Chazan, University of Toronto, Canada; Marine Frouin, Stony Brook University, USA; Dominic Stratford & Kelita Shadrach, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Cheryl Makarewicz & Nils Anderson, University of Kiel, Germany.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 837730: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/837730