In her talk "Human-mediated equine mobility and pathways to early horse husbandry", presented at the 2nd International Archaeological Symposium: "The Great Belt of the Eurasian Steppes: Transformation of Cultures in Time and Space" in Astana, Kazakhstan, Professor Cheryl Makarewicz explored how human-mediated horse mobility may have contributed to...
At the VI ICAZ Microvertebrate Working Group Meeting in Malta, Dr. Ma'ayan Levdiscussed how squamate bone accumulations in the Levant shifted from being raptor-driven to human-driven from the Middle Paleolithic through the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A in her talk "From raptor prey to human consumption: shifting herpetofauna accumulation agents in the...
By recovering viral DNA from both Bronze Age sheep dental remains and sheepskin parchment used in medieval manuscripts, researchers reconstructed a genomic record of sheeppox virus spanning roughly 3700 years, with the earliest evidence traced to pastoralist populations on the Eurasian steppe around 1700 BCE. Comparative analysis of these genomes...
At the 30th AnnualCalpe Conference – Neanderthal: The Conference, held in Gibraltar from 2–5 September 2026, Dr. Linda Amos presented a talk titled "Neanderthal Bird Exploitation at Devil's Tower Rock Shelter: Integrating a Legacy Assemblage into the Gibraltarian Middle Palaeolithic". It presented the first detailed taphonomic analysis of the large...
At the XXI UISPP World Congress in Poznań, Poland, Dr. Ma'ayan Lev talked about how early sedentary settlements at the PPNA site of el-Hemmeh (Jordan) fostered synanthropic communities in her talk, "Small prey exploitation and emerging synanthropic communities at the PPNA site of el-Hemmeh (Jordan)." Her presentation explored how rodents and then...
A new paper in PNAS by Ma'ayan Lev, Mina Weinstein-Evron, and Reuven Yeshurun documents systematic snake and lizard exploitation by the Natufian inhabitants of the site of el-Wad Terrace (Mount Carmel) across roughly 15,000 to 11,700 cal BP. Cut marks on 82 large-snake vertebrae, concentrated in a consistent anatomical location across 20...
A new paper published this week in PNAS by Cheryl Makarewicz, Pascal Flohr, and colleagues from the University of Oxford challenges the long-held view that increases in cereal grain size at the beginning of agriculture resulted primarily from genetic selection associated with cultivation. Instead, the researchers argue that larger grains...
We are excited to announce the arrival of our new PhD candidate in the ROOTS - Cluster of Excellence, Lily Kazanoff. Her research will explore socially mediated biodiversity change in the Southern Levant through the Holocene and attempt to synchronize biodiversity, human aggregation, and settlement data to test if different social structures...
The ASIL Laboratory is welcoming Dr. Alex Bertacchi to its team. He completing his PhD and Postdoc at Yale University and will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of analytical instruments, the development of laboratory workflows, and the training of students. He will also contribute to the processing and interpretation of isotopic...
Congratulations to Dr. Paul Duffy, Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz, et al. on their new paper "Nascent agricultural extensification and distinct household cultivation strategies supported first population centers in Neolithic southeastern Europe" published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. The study reconstructs household-scale farming practices...