The number of grant applications is rising sharply. Our capacity for their evaluation isn’t.
ERC President Maria Leptin explains why stricter resubmission limits are being introduced for 2027 calls and what they mean for applicants.
🔗 link.europa.eu/xF7kjc
Die 66 Regormvorschläge aus dem Gesundheitsministerium: kein einziger Vorschlag zielt darauf ab,die Einnahmen zu erhöhen. Dies könnte z.B. durch Wegfall der Beitragsbemessungsgrenze, durch Einbeziehung von Kapital- und Mieterträgen, durch Einzahlung aller in eine Krankenkasse passieren. Stattdessen:
Use-wear identifies two scenarios. Projectiles and knives (cutting).Calling all backed tools just backed tools obscures this two different functions and tools. Authors themself discuss the oblique hafting of crescents. Different morphology + different function ->crescents ->geometrical microlith 2/2
Figure 11 of Ossendorf et al. 2026. Shown are selected obsidian blanks of the three sites Dimtu, Simbero and Webi Gestro. Dimtu with pointed flakes, Simbero with backed tools that I would call geometrical microlith and Webi Gestro with notched bladelets and unretouched bladelets.
Ossendorf et at. 2026 published data from the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. doi.org/10.1007/s109...
The authors write that they don't use the terms microlithic, geometrical microlith or LSA. Based on results by researchers from the last years. Part of the study is use-wear anslysis. A thought: 1/2
www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3...
German men between 17 and 45 now need to submit a request to the army if they want to leave the country for more than three month.
Crazy.
Unfortunately reminds me of the dodos in the Ice Age movie: youtu.be/4RhqR2ZGkc0
Some Neanderthals ate their females: www.nature.com/articles/s41....
Male Neanderthals interbred with female Sapiens: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....
Suggested narrative: Male Neanderthals ate too many females and were lucky when h. sapiens arrived with new partners.
youtu.be/FN2RM-CHkuI
😄
It would be nice to see some wider publicity for this - are the Archaeology Schools speaking out in support ? @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social @aidanosullivan.bsky.social
❗Big news ❗
LEIZA Journal of Archaeology, a new #journal of world #archaeology, launches soon, and will be #DiamondOpenAccess, promoting discipline-changing and agenda-setting work & advancing #equity, #accessibility and #impact in #research and #publishing.
All info: www.leiza.de/forschung/pu...
I fully agree. It gets overlooked a lot and people who contributed aren't even acknowledged.
I don't know irish archaeologists in person, but the websites of institutes usually offer info about phd programms and contact details. E.g. share.google/1C3w1p07KoMc...
Writing a friendly E-Mail to a Prof working in the area you're interested in might help as well. Good luck!
In Folge 2 von "Tonscherben und Steine" reden Moritz und ich über den Faustkeil. Hört rein!
open.spotify.com/show/5DiNRwo...
Auf Spotify, Apple Podcasts und YouTube.
There was a flurry of interest a few months ago in response to Mark Humphries' article on using Google Gemini 3.5 Pro Preview for transcribing a C18th commercial ledger generativehistory.substack.com/p/the-sugar-... So at @chppc.bsky.social we decided to have an experiment (2/9)
🧬 Gemeinschaft ist mehr als DNA: Eine neue Publikation in Nature Anthropology unter Beteiligung unserer Kollegin S.Cveček zeigt, Genetik allein reicht nicht, um menschliche Beziehungen in der Vergangenheit zu verstehen.
Lesen Sie mehr dazu: buff.ly/HRP0z8x
Foto: © Adobe Stock
🚨 Job alert! The University of Tübingen announces a W3 (Full) Professorship in Early Hominin Evolution in the framework of the DFG Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS':
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨
Our volume on Stone Age clothing is now online and completely open access:
Jöris, O., Dietrich, O., Risch, R., & Meller, H. (Hrsg.). (2026). A Stone Age History of Clothing: Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 26. bis 28. September 2024 in Halle (Saale).
doi.org/10.11588/pro...
Es ist nicht die erste Reise des Außenministers auf den afrikanischen Kontinent.
Europäisches Hansemuseum in Lübeck. Right iluminated information about the trade networks before the Hanse. Left rconstruction of a Lodja(?), a medieval river ship of Nowgorod.
The "Europäisches Hansemuseum" in Lübeck is highly recommendable. Excavations below, history above, detailed reconstructions, information that you can modify to your interests beforehand, graphs, sounds, rooms with minimal media stimulation. Informative and exciting. Perfect.
NEU: Ein Berliner CDU-Abgeordneter gründet einen Verein. Er erhält 100.000 Euro vom Bezirk, wo eine Parteifreundin sitzt.
Einblick in ein System aus politischen Netzwerken und öffentlichen Geldern, das es so oder so ähnlich überall in DE geben könnte www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/recherchen/i...
Logo vom neuen Podcast Tonscherben und Steine. Mit Moritz und Christian. Im Vordergrund Moritz und Christian als simplifizierte Vektorgrafik. Hintergrund horizontale Ebenen in Ertönen als Darstellung von Sedimentschichten
Neuer Podcast. New Podcast in German.
spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/lpkEVt09MZb
Moritz und ich reden in der ersten Folge über die ältesten Werkzeuge der Menschheit.
Homo heidelbergensis and The Origins of The Middle Stone Age: The Kabwe (Broken Hill) Lithic Assemblage 🏺
Agreed. I liked it the first time but after watching all seasons of Andor, the character gain additional depth. With this depth and the light on elements of the rebellion beyond privileged jedis and senators, it's a good movie. (Just sharing it here in the light of social media)
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.
A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.
A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.
The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:
a 🧵 1/n
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Dein Geschäft ist Dein Geschäft. Wenn Du nur wenig Urlaub und niedrige Löhne für Masteranden bieten kannst, dann hoffe ich, niemand macht mit. Dazu eine gewaltige Erwartungshaltung sowie unbeugsames Verständnis für Arbeitgeber von Arbeitssuchenden, die sich selbst als links bezeichnen. 6/6
Das Problem in meinen Augen: In den Interessensverbänden dominieren die Arbeitgeber. Es wird gerade so auf Fairness geachtet, aber bei sich selbst selten die Konsequenz gezogen. Es gibt natürlich Firmen, die es besser machen. Weiteres Problem: Kleine Archäologiewelt und Kumpelmentalität. 5/6
Kennste ein GIS, kennste alle. Erlernen lässt sich alles. Unis sind auch und vielleicht sogar primär zum Forschen da. Einarbeitung kann in Betrieben erfolgen. Nicht zwei Jahre! Halbes Jahr und dann Vollbezahlung und los. 4/6
Hauptgrund für Absagen: In den falschen Regionen gegraben, die falsche Software genutzt. Was geboten wird: Volontariate oder Einstiegsjobs, alle mit weniger als 30 Tage Urlaub und unter 20€/H. Direkt nach dem Master vielleicht okay für einige Zeit, aber Master plus Erfahrung? Ungenügend! 3/6
Das angebliche Problem: Uninhalte passen sich nicht an die Bedürfnisse des Arbeitsmarktes an. Die Landesarchäologien inklusive Grabungsfirmen sind wichtige Arbeitgeber und erwähnen dies auch als Problem. Unsinn! Fast alle von uns könne Graben, Dokumentieren, kennen Software und Technik. 2/6
11 Monate in der Jobsuche als Archäologe während ein Mangel an Fachkräften herrscht. Vor 2 Tagen schreibt der SWR wie schwer die Jobsuche für Leute mit Uniabschluss ist. Warum? Wegen dem Mismatch. Arbeitgeber haben komplett andere Vorstellungen als Arbeitssuchende. 1/6