The ongoing interdisciplinary and innovative projects in Europe and Africa demonstrate the great potential of research in their respective areas.
Kgalagadi Human
Origins (KHO)
2021 – 2027
The Emmy Noether Group ‘Kgalagadi Human Origins’ started in June 2021. The six-year project is researching the impact of the extreme climate changes in the Mid- and late Pleistocene on human evolution in the southern Kalahari basin.
Palaeoecology and Open-Landscape adaptations of Pleistocene humans in South Africa (PEOPLE)
2022 – 2027
PEOPLE is a five year European Research Council funded project (ERC Starting Grant number 101039711) led by Principal Investigator Dr. Michael Toffolo at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) in Burgos (Spain). The project will investigate South African ecosystems with an interdisciplinary approach to assess human response to climate change during the Middle Stone Age (MSA).
Dr. Michaela Ecker is involved in the project as a collaborator using plant lipid biomarker stable isotopes extracted from archaeological sediments to explore local environmental changes through time.
More information: peopleproject.eu
The Lapa do Picareiro MicroContextual Project
(LdP MiCE)
2025 – 2026
The The Lapa do Picareiro MicroContextual Project applies the innovative MiCE method, which uses a microscribe 3-D digitising tool during laboratory excavation, to deposits rich in microfauna (the remains of rodents, insectivores, and bats) to create well-documented precise records of palaeoenvironmental information at the Pleistocene archaeological site Lapa do Picareiro in Portugal.
The project is led by Dr. Sara Rhodes (Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB), University of the Algarve), while team member Dr. Michaela Ecker responsibility is the isotopic components of the project.
More information: http://www.icarehb.com/srhodes/
Testing past ecological corridors with modern climate modelling
2020 – ongoing
In a collaboration between palaeoecologists, climate modellers and archaeologists this project developed novel methods to combine global climate model data directly with palaeoenvironmental records to model the distribution of vegetation biomes and determine their drivers in the Pleistocene. This data is then used to hypothesis about the spread of animal or human populations at distinct windows in the past.
The project is a joint collaboration between Dr. Hiromitsu Sato (University of Toronto, Canada), Dr. Douglas Kelley (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, UK) and Dr. Michaela Ecker. A paper about testing the “refugia hypothesis” for the Amazon during the Last Glacial Maximum is currently in review. The next planned project is modelling corridors for the spread of human population in Africa during the late Pleistocene using archaeological data.
The Northern Cape Archaeology and Ecology Project (NCAEP)
2019 – ongoing
The NCAEP Project is led by Sara Rhodes (Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB), University of the Algarve) and Michael Chazan (University of Toronto). It aims to expand our knowledge on the paleoecological context of the Later Stone Age in the Northern Cape, South Africa. This includes new excavations into the Later Stone Age at Wonderwerk Cave and on the Ghaap plateau escarpment coupled with analysis of new high-resolution paleoecological material records firmly situated in robust radiocarbon chronologies.
Michaela Ecker joined the project with the main responsibility of reconstructing the past environment using sediment leaf wax biomarkers.
More information: http://www.icarehb.com/srhodes/
Results
Rhodes, S.E., Goldberg, P., Ecker, M., Horwitz, L.K., Boaretto, E. and Chazan, M., 2021. Exploring the Later Stone Age at a micro-scale: New high-resolution excavations at Wonderwerk Cave. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2021.10.004
Wonderwerk Cave Project,
South Africa
2013 – ongoing
Wonderwerk Cave currently has the oldest evidence for hominin use of cave sites in the world as well as evidence for use of fire by hominins c. 1 million years ago. Its archaeological layers span almost two million years, resulting in an unique archaeological and sedimentological repository in this arid region.
Michaela Ecker joined the project in 2013 as field director with the main responsibility of setting up of a digital survey system in the cave and database creation and management in addition to her doctorate work in stable isotope biogeochemistry at Wonderwerk. The Wonderwerk Cave research project is lead since 2004 by Michael Chazan (University of Toronto), Liora Horwitz (The Hebrew University Jerusalem) and includes c. 30 international researchers.
More information: www.wonderwerkcave.com.
Kgalagadi Human Origins 