vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř
@vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
410 followers 300 following 80 posts
Evolutionary anthropologist. Postdoctoral Researcher at @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social‬. Interested in prehistory and cultural evolution. vaclavhrncir.com
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vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř @vaclavhrncir.bsky.social · Jul 15
Our cross-cultural study on alcohol and its role in the rise of political complexity is finally published 🍻 🎉 (1/5)

🧪 #Alcohol #CulturalEvolution #CulturalComplexity

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Did alcohol facilitate the evolution of complex societies? - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Did alcohol facilitate the evolution of complex societies?
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
v-vondrovsky.bsky.social
Václav Vondrovský @v-vondrovsky.bsky.social · 6d
Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague offers a position for a researcher focused on archaeological contextualisation of biomolecular results www.arup.cas.cz/en/tender-ju...
Tender | (Junior) Researcher from abroad - ARUP
Job Description: Research activities focusing on archaeological contextualisation of biomolecular results Research context: We are looking for highly motivated scholar with a background in integrating...
www.arup.cas.cz
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
ercrema.bsky.social
Enrico R. Crema @ercrema.bsky.social · 5d
⚠️Paper Alert!⚠️
Excited to share this paper with @roccoro.bsky.social where we examined whether ceramic technology in Saharan Africa was the result of a single or multiple episodes of innovation & diffusion
rdcu.be/eJi3g
Bayesian analyses of radiocarbon dates suggest multiple origins of ceramic technology in Early Holocene Africa
Nature Communications - Several possible points of origin have been proposed for the spread of ceramic technology in Saharan Africa between 11–10,000 years ago. Here, the authors...
rdcu.be
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vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř @vaclavhrncir.bsky.social · 5d
Bought a ticket for the #ERC grant lottery. 🎫
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nathumbehav.nature.com
Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 8d
Milad Malekzadeh was once told that to be successful in #academia, developing unique expertise was necessary. Over the years, he learned that diversification is more valuable.
You are more than your current research - Nature Human Behaviour
Milad Malekzadeh was once told that to be successful in academia, developing unique expertise was necessary. Over the years, he learned that diversification is more valuable.
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
felixthehauskat.bsky.social
Felix Riede @felixthehauskat.bsky.social · 9d
I, too, am proud to share this quite exciting finding with you: Europe's oldest mineral blue pigment. It's azurite and we found it on a legacy object that had long languished in a storehouse. New analysis bring new insights :) #palaeolithicblues
izzywisher.bsky.social
Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 9d
Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵

Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺

doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Close-up image of a sand coloured stone, with a diagonal crack. The sand rock has a textured surface, and small spots of blue can be seen towards the centre of the stone. The background is grey. Microscopic photo of the blue spots, that are irregular in shape and size and positioned diagonally across the image. The rest of the photo shows the rough sand coloured texture of the stone.
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
fossilhistory.bsky.social
Paige Madison @fossilhistory.bsky.social · 11d
Honestly a little speechless. Looking forward to spending the next few days here. 🏺
📍Narodni Muzeum
The front façade of the National Museum in Prague, with ornate statues, columns, and a fountain in the foreground. Large vertical banners hang between the columns, one reading “Lucy & Selam” and another showing a hominin face, advertising the exhibition inside. The sky above is overcast.
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hraf755.bsky.social
Human Relations Area Files at Yale University @hraf755.bsky.social · 12d
Pulotu, the proto-Polynesian word for the abode of the gods, is a database of supernatural beliefs and practices across Austronesian cultures specifically designed to test evolutionary hypotheses of religious belief and practice, with a primary focus on the traditional state of cultures. pulotu.com
Pulotu -
pulotu.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · 15d
We are happy to share the programme of speakers for our global symposium on lithic technology 🪨🔎

There are just a few spaces left for in-person participation! DM for more information.

You can join us online via this Zoom registration link: eu02web.zoom-x.de/webinar/regi...
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
vivek123.bsky.social
Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 19d
Bruce Winterhalder was once asked to share some professional insights.

Here they are:
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
ces2026.bsky.social
ces2026 @ces2026.bsky.social · 19d
We’re delighted to share that the CES2026 Conference website is now live!

We warmly invite researchers, scholars, and practitioners to submit their presentation proposals by November 16th through the submission portal on the website.
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
zhgarfield.com
Zach Garfield @zhgarfield.com · 18d
If only there was a theory to explain this... ;))

@edhagen.net 🧪

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Ethanol ingestion via frugivory in wild chimpanzees
Natural daily consumption of dietary alcohol by chimpanzees suggests human attraction to alcohol may come from our ancestral diet.
www.science.org
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
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...
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vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř @vaclavhrncir.bsky.social · 22d
"A well-designed PhD program teaches you how to ask good questions. Trivial as this may sound, no ability is more central to scientific progress than asking good questions. And doing it is much, much harder than you think."
eselster.bsky.social
Eli Stark-Elster @eselster.bsky.social · 23d
OpenAI was mocked for saying GPT-5 would display "PhD-level intelligence." If we took that concept seriously, what might it mean? Which capacity is uniquely cultivated through a PhD?
I think it's mostly one thing: learning how to ask Goldilocks questions.
open.substack.com/pub/unpublis...
Goldilocks questions
On the nature of "PhD-level intelligence"
open.substack.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
culturalevolsoc.bsky.social
Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 25d
We are delighted to announce that the CES2026 conference website is now live! We invite you to submit your presentation proposals using the link on the webpage, deadline November 16th:
airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026
Cultural Evolution Society 2026 Conference | Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique - FGSES
airess.fgses-um6p.ma
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
tommyhigham.bsky.social
Tom Higham @tommyhigham.bsky.social · 23d
PhD Studentship alert!
I'm looking for a motivated student to work here in Vienna @vdsee-univie.bsky.social on my ERC grant "DISPERSE". It's a fulltime scholarship (working in 14C and #archsci in Palaeolithic archaeology in Eurasia.
Details in the link below!
jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...
University assistant predoctoral 1
University assistant predoctoral 1
jobs.univie.ac.at
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sheinalew.bsky.social
Sheina Lew-Levy @sheinalew.bsky.social · 27d
@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!

3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution

2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.

Please share and apply!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...
Fees and Funding - Durham University
www.durham.ac.uk
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
chrisbuckley.bsky.social
Chris Buckley @chrisbuckley.bsky.social · Sep 6
Today I came across Kozak et al's remarkable account of the Heta Indians from the forests of Brazil ("The Heta Indians: Fish in a Dry Pond"), based on information gathered in the 1950s. The Heta made ground stone axes, which they made by pecking and grinding suitable stones ...
A Heta man from the Brazilian forests, making a stone axe blade by pecking
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
graemewarren.bsky.social
Graeme Warren @graemewarren.bsky.social · Sep 5
IMPORTANT NEWS re. 14th Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies...

ISHGR are delighted to announce that CHAGS14 will be held in summer 2027 in Belém, Brazil. This will be a partnership between the Goeldi Museum and the Universidade Federal do Pará. More details to follow soon.

Please share!!
a picture of a minion holding a megaphone with the words breaking news below him
ALT: a picture of a minion holding a megaphone with the words breaking news below him
media.tenor.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
joshcjackson.bsky.social
Joshua Conrad Jackson @joshcjackson.bsky.social · Sep 5
@helenamiton.bsky.social and I have a new paper out:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Past theories focus on how we evolve complex technologies (jet engines), but neglect cultural innovations that help us operate these technologies (pilot checklist)

Paper has tons of examples and new theory!
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vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř @vaclavhrncir.bsky.social · Sep 4
Huge congrats!! 🎉🎉
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social
MPI-EVA Leipzig @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social · Sep 3
How the #Slavic #migration reshaped Central & Eastern #Europe. Ancient #DNA provides new insights into early medieval communities. Study @nature.com by an intl. team led by Joscha Gretzinger, @zhofmanova.bsky.social & Johannes Krause. #HistoGenes More: tinyurl.com/msuys4mu & doi.org/10.1038/s415...
How the Slavic migration reshaped Central and Eastern Europe
Genetic analyses of medieval human remains reveal large-scale migrations, regional diversity, and new insights into early medieval communities
tinyurl.com
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vaclavhrncir.bsky.social
Václav Hrnčíř @vaclavhrncir.bsky.social · Sep 1
Two female miners and a newborn found in a Neolithic mining shaft.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Ritual Burials in a Prehistoric Mining Shaft in the Krumlov Forest (Czechia) - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
The Krumlov Forest (Czechia) revealed one of the largest chert mining fields in Europe, dated from the Mesolithic to the Hallstatt period. The largest shafts of the Late Lengyel culture were located o...
link.springer.com
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
chiarabarbieri.bsky.social
Chiara Barbieri @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social · Aug 30
A very special paper where we did something NEW! 🔥combining a large genetic dataset 🧬, a large linguistic dataset 💬, and Bayesian multilevel logistic regressions 📈, counting the effects of areal contact (geographic constrains) 🌎. Genetic admixture explains higher levels of linguistic exchanges...
annagraff.bsky.social
Anna Graff @annagraff.bsky.social · Aug 30
Our paper is out! We linked genetic and linguistic data to study how contact changes language and found consistent patterns of borrowing across contact situations
@balthasarbickel.bsky.social @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @isle-uzh.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv7521
Patterns of genetic admixture reveal similar rates of borrowing across diverse scenarios of language contact
Human population contact leads to consistently similar rates of linguistic borrowing, but effects vary across linguistic features.
www.science.org
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Reposted by Václav Hrnčíř
chiarabarbieri.bsky.social
Chiara Barbieri @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social · Aug 27
New paper! ⚡ With Gabriel Aguirre and Marcelo Sánchez, looking at patterns of blowgun types and use across societies of the world. We find areal patterns, similarities mediated by cultural connections, and specific types characterizing distinct branches of the Austronesian language tree. 🎯
A global database on blowguns with links to geography and language | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core
A global database on blowguns with links to geography and language - Volume 7
www.cambridge.org
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taras-grescoe.com
𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · Aug 27
More on McGovern's work from @spoke32.bsky.social Andrew Curry:

www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/art...
Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze
Alcohol isn’t just a mind-altering drink: It has been a prime mover of human culture from the beginning, fueling the development of arts, language, and religion.
www.nationalgeographic.com
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