banner
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center
@roceeh.bsky.social
35 followers 5 following 10 posts
"The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans" | Home of the Roceeh Out of Africa Database (ROAD)
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by ROCEEH Research Center
sommergeo.bsky.social
Christian Sommer @sommergeo.bsky.social · 15d
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...
Conference Sessions – CAA 2026
2026.caaconference.org
1
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · 21d
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...
5 4
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jul 22
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.
1
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jul 22
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.
1
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jul 22
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
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)
1 5 9
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jun 26
New article with ROCEEH's Andrew Kandel and based on the ROAD database! 🎉
elliescerri.bsky.social
Eleanor Scerri @elliescerri.bsky.social · Jun 18
1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature
Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...
www.nature.com
3
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jun 25
New article with ROCEEH contribution
sommergeo.bsky.social
Christian Sommer @sommergeo.bsky.social · Jun 25
📄📢New article: Bader, Sommer, Linstädter, Masia, Blessing, Forrester, & MacDonald (2025). Decoding hunter-gatherer-knowledge and selective choice of lithic raw materials during the Middle and Later Stone Age in Eswatini. Journal of Archaeological Science, 180, 106302. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...
Fig. 3. (a) View of the Mgwayiza valley; (b) detail of red jasper outcrop with white quartz veins; (c) knapped materials. Stream power analysis in relation to chert bearing lithologies in the study area. Least cost path analysis indicating the optimal transport routes between raw material outcrops and archaeological sites. A scatterplot of NAA data representing PC1 (40 % var.) and PC2 (21.5 % var.) for all source and artifact samples. Element vectors are shown, representing elements that drive variation between compositional groups.
1 2
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Jun 16
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
Cover of ROCEEH Newsletter #25
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · May 7
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.
2 6
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Feb 26
Update: Deadline is March 14th, not February 28th as falsely stated in previous post.
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Feb 20
💼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
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 …
roceeh.bsky.social
ROCEEH Research Center @roceeh.bsky.social · Feb 20
💼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
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 …
5 5
Reposted by ROCEEH Research Center
sommergeo.bsky.social
Christian Sommer @sommergeo.bsky.social · Jan 22
⏩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...
1 2 6