New publication from the ROCEEH Team 🎉

The roadDB workshop at #CAA2026 is in full swing!

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals | PNAS The demographic history of Neanderthals is only partially understood. In Europe, some degree of genetic continuity has been shown from 120 thousand...

News on Neanderthal population history! 🧬 We combined archaeology (from @roceeh.bsky.social ROAD) + ancient DNA, to uncover a genetic turnover ~65 ka linked to a SW France refugium. Together, aDNA & archaeology reveal a richer, nuanced past than either could alone.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The latest ROCEEH Newsletter is available!

🇦🇪 @unesco.org World Heritage site Faya Paleolandscape
📱🎲 Visual Communication Design meets Neanderthals
👩‍💻 The R package 'roadDB'
🕸️ ROCEEH Symposium “Diversifying networks. How culture infuses the environment”

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Today we’re glad to welcome Andrew Kandel from @roceeh.bsky.social who will introduce us to the ROAD database! @unituebingen.bsky.social

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📢Last call: Submit your presentations to the ROCEEH (co-)hosted sessions at @caaint.bsky.social by November 9th!

S25: How to do ROAD: An Essential Tool for Conducting
Multidisciplinary Studies Related to Human Evolution 🪨💀🦣🌼

S39: Palaeo-GIS 🌍📌

🔗https://2026.caaconference.org/conference-sessions/

Our joint workshop on "Big Data and Human Evolution" between ROCEEH and @boneslab.bsky.social, organized by Giulia Marciani in Ravenna, is in full swing! Great talks, good company and Sangiovese🍷

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Cover of the abstract book, showing a network connecting environmental and cultural nodes.

Group picture with the participants of the ROCEEH Simposium "Diversifying Networks – How Culture infuses the Environment".

From October 8–10, 2025, ROCEEH hosted the international symposium “Diversifying Networks – How Culture Infuses the Environment” — three days of rich, interdisciplinary dialogue exploring the deep links between culture and environment.

Book of Abstracts: www.roceeh.uni-tuebingen.de/diversifying...

The deadline for abstracts for CAA 2026 in Vienna is approaching — only 10 days left!

Showcase your research using the ROAD database in Session S25 "How to do ROAD", or highlight your spatial archaeological studies in Session S39 "Paleo-GIS".

More info: 2026.caaconference.org/conference-s...

Conference Sessions – CAA 2026

CFP for CAA 2026 Vienna is open (deadline Oct 26)! We're back with Session 39: Palaeo-GIS — for GIS in Palaeolithic & prehistoric contexts. Reflective, context-aware papers especially welcome.
🔗 Session info: 2026.caaconference.org/conference-s...

Submit an abstract to the dedicated session on use cases of the ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD) at CAA 2025 in Vienna!

S25: How to do ROAD: An Essential Tool for Conducting Multidisciplinary Studies Related to Human Evolution

Deadline: October 26th 2025
2026.caaconference.org/conference-s...

The long sequence of occupations of the Faya Paleolandscape indicates that the Arabian Peninsula was not just a corridor, but an independent region of human cultural evolution.

Faya is famous for one of the world’s oldest and most continuous records of early human presence in arid environments over 200,000 years. It yielded evidence for the long-supposed southern route of modern human expansion “out of Africa” via the Bab-al-Mandap strait.

Overview of the 10 km long Jebel Faya mountain and the plain with the archaeological sites in front. The ridge forms a barrier to the Rub’ al Khali desert. (photo: Sharjah Archaeology Authority)

We congratulate the Faya Paleolandscape on its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List! (whc.unesco.org/en/list/1735/). Since its early years, ROCEEH has supported research in Jebel Faya and neighboring sites financially and with personnel.
📷Sharjah Archaeology Authority

New article with ROCEEH's Andrew Kandel and based on the ROAD database! 🎉

New article with ROCEEH contribution

Cover of ROCEEH Newsletter #25

ROCEEH Newsletter #25 is out! tinyurl.com/298mya2t

🪨 The Jojosi Dongas’ hidden history of early
humans and landscapes
👣 Lateurope: Why Western Europe was settled by
hominins later than other regions of Eurasia
🏛️ South-Africa‘s Sibhudu Cave named a UNESCO
World Heritage Site
🏹 Becoming a bow hunter

ROCEEH's Jan-Olaf Reschke, Christine Hertler and Christian Sommer @sommergeo.bsky.social spotted at #CAA2025 in Athens!
Hear our talks in Session 14: "Advances in modelling past human ecosystems", held in Room A5 on Thursday, May 8th, 13:45–16:05.

Update: Deadline is March 14th, not February 28th as falsely stated in previous post.

The project "The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans (interner Link)" (ROCEEH) is a research project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences within the framework of the Academy Program of the German Federal and State Governments. It explores the changing interactions of cultural and ecological developments as well as spatiotemporal expansions in the course of human evolution between 3 million and 20,000 years ago in Africa and Eurasia. ROCEEH is projected to run until 2027. The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities is seeking for the project ROCEEH at the work place of the University of Tübingen starting on 01.05.2025 a Data Curator (m/f/d) with a background in Palaeolithic Archaeology (TV-L E13, 100% for two years) Your tasks: Data maintenance and quality control of the project's database ROAD Support of archaeological areas of the ROAD database, incl. compilation of relevant data on material culture (e.g. stone tools, organic artefacts etc.) Conceptual development of the database applications Input of literature and maintenance of literature data in ROAD Coordination of work on ROAD between the research centres in Tübingen and Frankfurt Technical supervision of students working on the ROCEEH project Participation in the preparation of specialist publications Presentation of the database at conferences, as part of training courses and in public relations work Involvement in university teaching is possible. Your profile: A university degree with a doctorate in the field of material culture in Palaeolithic archaeology Experience in working with relational databases Experience with SQL and R programming is an advantage Experience in the completion of specialist publications Very good knowledge of written and spoken English, other language skills are an advantage Very good communication and teamwork skills The position is limited to two years. Severely disabled applicants will be given …

💼Open position in the ROCEEH Project!
Join the team as Data Curator for Paleolithic Archaeology and help expand the ROAD database!
🔍Details: www.hadw-bw.de/aktuelles/au...
📅Deadline: 28.02.2025

⏩Fast forward: You can easily create animated maps in R using data from the ROAD database @roceeh.bsky.social. This example shows the appearance (🔴) and deposition (⚫) of ~6000 dated assemblages with stone artifacts between 2,780,000 and 10,000 years BP.
💻 github.com/sommergeo/ro...