T rex breath and Queen Elizabeth’s car: scientists creating ‘time machine for the nose’ Researchers are recreating ancient odours for museumgoers as interest in the archaeology of smell grows

Smelly past, or: history with all senses ...

Glad to see @theguardian.com reporting on @barahuber.bsky.social and colleagues' brilliant research in #olfactory #archaeology.

👃🏺 www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

I am so happy to co-author this #preprint review on archaeal tetraether lipids, aka #GDGTs, as marine paleoenvironmental indicators led by @lipidorama.bsky.social and @climategordon.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.22541/ess...
@cerege.bsky.social
@climatecerege.bsky.social
#TeamArchaea
🧪 ⚒️ 🌊
#PaleoSky
(1/4)

I recently had one of these. Reviewer complained about lots of trivial things, for example the way we named the samples (sampling code) etc. 🙄

Cover des Bandes "Scents of Arabia. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Olfactory Worlds", herausgegeben von Arnulf Hausleiter und Barbara Huber. Auf dem hellen Cover sind im Hintergrund angedeutete Dunstschleier in gesetzten Rot- und Brauntönen zu erkennen.

👃 Wie roch die Vergangenheit?

Ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt nimmt uns mit einer neuen Publikation (hrsg. von A. Hausleiter & @barahuber.bsky.social) zu #Duftstoffe​n u.a. aus der Oase #Tayma im Nordwesten #SaudiArabien​s mit in die Welt antiker #Düfte.

🏺 www.dainst.org/newsroom/sce...

A journey into the sensory world of ancient Arabia: incense, ritual, trade, memory & scent 🌿🔥🏺🧪

www.dainst.org/en/newsroom/...

That would be such a fun project!

History Smelled. Here’s How We’re Sniffing It Out How can reconstructing long-lost smells of ancient artifacts help us connect with the past?

Really nice coverage on our research on ancient scents by @sciam.bsky.social and @gayoung.bsky.social
🏺🧪👩‍🔬

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

I'm hiring!⭐ As part of the DFF Sapere Aude-funded project MiddleEarth, I am looking for 1 postdoctoral researcher and 1 research assistant.

Book cover for Scents of Arabia: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Olfactory Worlds

Interested in the kinds of information archaeologists can gain from metabolic profiling? Check out this wonderful new book and our chapter on the ancient oasis of Tayma.

This work builds on our 2022 paper on reconstructing ancient scents in Nature Human Behaviour: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you, Eslem 🫶

Available here: www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

🌿✨ New Book Out! ✨🌿
Our new volume #Scents_of_Arabia: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Olfactory Worlds is now published with
@archaeopress.bsky.social

Thank you to all contributors who made this book possible!
@dai-weltweit.bsky.social
🏺🧪👩‍🔬👃

#PastScents #Heritage #Archaeology

Available here: www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

Congrats!! Well done Gopesh and team 🥳

So looking forward to ISBA11!! See you in Turin 💚

Frontiers | Collagen peptide markers for three extinct Australian megafauna species Recent advancements in biomolecular archaeology, such as stable isotope and ancient DNA research, have expanded our understanding of megafauna extinction pro...

Our latest paper is out now in Frontiers in Mammal Science: www.frontiersin.org/journals/mam...

We characterized ZooMS peptide markers for three extinct Australian megafauna species 🦴🧪

This is figure 2, which shows alkaloids in archeological residues linked to Peganum harmala and its psychoactive and therapeutic properties.

Metabolic profiling of Iron Age residues from the oasis of Qurayyah reveals the earliest material evidence for the fumigation of the drug plant Peganum harmala, used for medicinal and hygienic purposes, according to a paper in Communications Biology. go.nature.com/3HhFV6D 🏺 🧪

Metabolic profiling reveals first evidence of fumigating drug plant Peganum harmala in Iron Age Arabia - Communications Biology Metabolic profiling of Iron Age residues from the oasis of Qurayyah, Northwest Arabia, reveals the earliest material evidence for the fumigation of the drug plant Peganum harmala, used in domestic con...

"Metabolic profiling of Iron Age residues from the oasis of Qurayyah, Northwest Arabia, reveals the earliest material evidence for the fumigation of the drug plant Peganum harmala, used in domestic contexts for medicinal and hygienic purposes.

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Smoke and Memory: How Iron Age Arabia Burned Plants to Heal and Cleanse At a desert oasis in Qurayyah, the scent of tradition lingers 2,700 years later

Smoke and Memory: How Iron Age Arabia Burned Plants to Heal and Cleanse
www.anthropology.net/p/smoke-and-...

Same here! I only knew Syrian rue as a stubborn weed until I saw its seeds burned for the first time a few years ago in Iran – such a striking smell.

Schon Eisenzeit-Menschen verwendeten psychoaktive Steppenraute Ein österreichisch-deutsches Forschungsteam analysierte Rückstände auf archäologischen Funden – und wies die früheste Verwendung der Pflanze vor 2700 Jahren auf der Arabischen Halbinsel nach.

Nice media coverage about our new study on psychoactive and medicinal plants in the past 🌿🧪
@diepressecom.bsky.social

www.diepresse.com/19717652/sch...

Earliest use of psychoactive and medicinal plant ‘harmal’ identified in Iron Age Arabia A new study uses metabolic profiling to uncover ancient knowledge systems behind therapeutic and psychoactive plant use in ancient Arabia.

Earliest use of psychoactive and medicinal plant ‘harmal’ identified in Iron Age Arabia | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

This was a wonderful collaboration between @univie.ac.at @heasvienna.bsky.social, @climatecerege.bsky.social, @maxplanck.de and the Saudi Heritage Commission.

Many thanks to all co-authors, especially Marta Luciani and @thibaut-d.bsky.social

Metabolic profiling reveals first evidence of fumigating drug plant Peganum harmala in Iron Age Arabia - Communications Biology Metabolic profiling of Iron Age residues from the oasis of Qurayyah, Northwest Arabia, reveals the earliest material evidence for the fumigation of the drug plant Peganum harmala, used in domestic con...

🧪 New Research Alert! 🧪

Our latest study, published in @commsbio.nature.com uncovers the earliest known evidence of the medicinal and psychoactive plant Peganum harmala (harmal) in ancient Arabia. 🏺
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#Metabolomics 🧪 #BiomolecularArchaeology #AncientMedicine

Paper alert, @nature.com. Our study reveals 8 million years of #GreenArabia. We document environmental variability - ranging over the entire course of human evolution. Arabia is a key bridge at the cross-roads of continents. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Barbara Huber Awarded GNAA Science Award 2025 for Excellence in Archaeological Science and Archaeometry

🌿✨ I’m so happy to share that I’ve been awarded the #GNAA_Science_Award 2025 for Excellence in Archaeological Science and Archaeometry.

A heartfelt thank you to all my mentors, collaborators, and colleagues along the way ☺️

www.gea.mpg.de/140806/barba...

🌿 Excited to share our new Research Topic:

Biomolecular Insights into Food, Medicine, and Scent in Environmental Archaeology

👇🏼 Check out the full Research Topic here:
www.frontiersin.org/research-top...

@ancientproteins.bsky.social

Could you please add me as well? Thank you 🙏

Screenshot of the paper title. It's published in the special issue "Special Issue: What’s in a Name? Late Middle and Early Late Pleistocene Hominin Systematics" and the title of the paper is "Paleoproteomic Contributions, and Current Limitations, to Understanding Middle and Late Pleistocene Human Evolution".

📣 Paper alert! 📣 In this review, available as early view in @paleoanthjourn.bsky.social, we discuss "Paleoproteomic Contributions, and Current Limitations, to Understanding Middle and Late Pleistocene Human Evolution". Thanks to all coauthors! paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.ph...

An unclean slate, discrepancies between food input and recovered protein signal from experimental foodcrusts Organic residues are a rich source of biomolecular information on ancient diets. In particular, foodcrusts, charred residues on ceramics, are commonly analysed for their lipid content and to a lesser ...

Very interesting preprint from @matthewcollins.bsky.social @jessiehendy.bsky.social and others on experimental foodcrusts and recovered proteins to identify the ingredients.

It's complicated.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...