Research Projects in the Department of Archaeology

As the world's remaining hunting and gathering societies interact more actively with their settled agricultural neighbours, they face major changes in their diet, mobility and community networks. The 5-year MOBILE project is studying the impact of these changes on the health and biological diversity of traditionally hunter-gatherer communities in Indonesia, in order to better understand human experience and evolution in tropical forest environments.

Human evolution is a central research area in biology and anthropology and has a history of research going back more than 150 years. For most of that time, evidence has come from digging up fossils and archaeological remains. Research in human evolution has been transformed by the impact of genomics and the development of ancient DNA methodologies, producing new insights into past demography, dispersal and admixture patterns, social behaviour, selection, disease history, and more.

The transition from Oldowan to Acheulean technologies are hypothesised to be concomitant with advances in cognition and behaviour. However, the nature of these shifts, and their cultural and evolutionary implications are poorly defined and understood. While extensive literature exists on these technologies, significant differences in research methods and traditions make comparative and comprehensive analyses problematic.