Thank you @prelights.bsky.social & Alejandra Leffer's group for choosing our preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social and for this chance to talk about human- #malaria coevolution!🦟 @eegcam.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @MPI_GEA

New paper from all of us led by the amazing @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social!

New paper alert! Led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, we look at refugia for baboons in the Pleistocene and Holocene, offering a potential analogue for early hominins where climatic tolerances are shared. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

"Do Recent DNA Studies Refute a 65 kya Arrival of Humans in Sahul?" See comment by @elliescerri.bsky.social and myself here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🌲Great to see our @cp-oneearth.bsky.social study on #rewilding-inspired #forestry featured 2x in @mongabay.com . It’s a land-sharing approach—restoring #biodiversity & resilience in used #forests, not replacing protected areas. 🔗 news.mongabay.com/2025/04/dive... (further links below)🌳🌴🦬🍒🪵♨️

Gift article about our work that also mentions our recently published paper in @nature.com on rainforests as well! Thank you @carlzimmer.com!

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 paper drop coming at 5pm CEST today. Excited!

Final day of the #IslandLegacies conference today! So grateful for the convergence of such a fantastic group of scholars and thinkers. It has been truly inspirational!

Livestream tomorrow at 5pm UK/noon EDT with Drs Eleanor Scerri (@elliescerri.bsky.social) and Huw Groucutt (@huwgroucutt.bsky.social) to chat about their recent paper that's been all over the news about Hunter gatherer occupation on Malta www.youtube.com/live/ZGRjN20...

Recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years Monika Markowska @huwgroucutt.bsky.social, @nicoleboivin.bsky.social, @elliescerri.bsky.social et al www.nature.com/articles/s41... Wetter conditions likely facilitated dispersals between Africa and Eurasia. Arabia acting as crossroads.

Here is the latest news from @eegcam.bsky.social... Among other VIPs (=very important publications), it includes our recent paper on Luca Cavalli-Sforza's legacy on #humanevolution 💀🧬 With @margheritac17.bsky.social Jason Hogdson, @chrisbstringer.bsky.social and @elliescerri.bsky.social

A nice video on our work in @nature.com from the Times of Malta with English subtitles for the Maltese parts! www.facebook.com/share/v/185P...

My summary of the exciting new excavations by @elliescerri.bsky.social and her colleagues, showing Mesolithic hunter gatherers arrived to Malta by sea

And today I have the rare pleasure of also double dipping in @nature.com with this fantastic article showing recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years! This was such a pleasure to do, with incredible fieldwork in beautiful Saudi caves!

A blog post from me about our discovery pushing back Maltese prehistory to the Mesolithic, and discovering that hunter-gatherers were making epic 100 km sea journeys! communities.springernature.com/posts/discov...

Watch the full video clip about our discoveries and their significance - from Charlie Cauchi at Sajjetta! player.vimeo.com/video/105936...

In @nature.com we report the presence of the Mesolithic on Malta - upending everything we knew about the seafaring capabilities of late European hunter-gatherers and pushing back Maltese prehistory by 1000 years. Watch the clip, link to open access paper is below. 1/5 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My amazing zooarch postdoc Mario Mata-González has published a new paper based on his PhD work - check it otu! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Coming on the 9th of April at 2pm CEST - Will Gosling's lecture in our "Human Palaeosystems in Focus" series - don't miss it! www.gea.mpg.de/129765/drive...

Our new paper is out in Scientific Reports, led by our own @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social exploring factors behind early technological diversification! Congratulations Lucy!

New paper detailing ancient DNA from North Africa during the African Humid Period. Were they the last descendants of North African Late Pleistocene people? The pattern is not dissimilar to the structure and bottlenecks we estimated for the North African MSA, link below www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Did you know that @ec.europa.eu just launched a €5 million call for proposals to strengthen the European Fact-Checking Network? Find out more 👇 buff.ly/F5GiQyE

Working in Saudi Arabia for ten years was an incredible experience. We're dropping a major paper next Wednesday on this at 17.00 CEST. Watch this space!

Yes indeed! Awesome things coming soon, watch this space!

Join us for the Human Palaeosystems Group Seminar Series!

Exciting new article in @nature.com. European hunter-gatherer ancestry found in North Africa. How did they get there? Europe's final hunter-gatherers have quite a few secrets to yield... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting new pre-print, "A structured coalescent model reveals deep ancestral structure shared by all modern humans" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Honoured to receive an award for contributions to education and science in #Malta for #InternationalWomensDay!

The updated concise programme for the #IslandLegacies conference has been uploaded (more talks!). We are now working on the full programme booklet. There are just 30 spaces left! Please share www.um.edu.mt/media/um/doc... #Archaeology #IPalaeontology #Mediterranean www.um.edu.mt/events/islan...

The preliminary concise programme for the #IslandLegacies conference is out! We are thrilled to see such a great line up. Early bird prices end soon and we only have a few places left. Register now to secure your place! www.um.edu.mt/media/um/doc...

In today's #WestAfricanMSA educational programme, is @eslembenarous.bsky.social other amazing lead author paper confirming the MIS 6-5 ages from the sites of Bargny 1 & 3 in Senegal, excavated by the equally fantastic Khady Niang & @jblinkhorn.bsky.social! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Time to learn some more about the West African MSA! They were not only in rainforests 150,000 years ago, they were also in mangrove forests! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(1/27) Humans in rainforests….humans in deserts? A thread!

It's great to see so much interest in West Africa now. When I first started working there with my longtime research partner Khady Niang, funding was sparse. We drove around in a ramshackle 4x4 with a camping stove, rice and beans. We could not have imagined the discoveries of the past ten years!

Meanwhile, 150,000 years ago: hunter-gatherers thrived in rain forests, once considered too harsh for early Homo sapiens to survive. Here's my story [Gift link] nyti.ms/3EThoDL 🧪

And now for the 'story behind the paper'! communities.springernature.com/posts/unlock...

In @nature.com we show that humans lived in rainforests ~150,000 years ago – over double the previous oldest estimate. Their presence in West Africa’s rainforests demonstrates the spread of early humans and places ecological diversity at the heart of our species. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In a few days, we'll release the concise conference programme, with speakers and titles, and you'll be able to see why we are so excited. This is going to be an excellent opportunity to get new knowledge, network, and disseminate your results. Register! #IslandLegacies. www.um.edu.mt/events/islan...

I can't believe it's already been 3 years since this paper. It was exciting to write, with many outstanding and provocative questions remaining. doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

(1/9) I’m hiring! Join my ‘Terraform’ ERC project at the University of Malta, looking at the origin, evolution, and impacts of agricultural terracing in the Maltese Islands. Please circulate to anyone you think could be interested. Starting in the summer.

The perfect spot for the #IslandLegacies conference Ice breaker party? Gorgeous sea views...check...amazing Mediterranean garigue terrace...check...beautiful sandy beach...check! Register now before the Early Bird fees end! www.um.edu.mt/events/islan...

Amidst all the horrible news at the moment, we can promise something big and exciting about human origins dropping next wednesday 26th at 5pm CET. Watch this space! :)

Looking for advice about how to shore up/secure/strengthen the sections of an ever deepening trench without boring/digging anything into older deposits in the ground. This is outside my wheelhouse, so any pointers/advice gratefully received. Can also PM me.

Human hunting wiped out the flightless moa cosmosmagazine.com/nature/human...

New paper alert! Led by the amazing Margherita Colucci and @mikleonardi.bsky.social, with @chrisbstringer.bsky.social, and Jason Hodgson, we explore the legacy of Luca Cavalli-Sforza on human evolution. Thanks to @louneschikhi.bsky.social who led this volume. www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/5/1/000...

Very grateful to have a place on the ARTEMIS Mentorship Scheme this year 🎉 www.gea.mpg.de/134360/artem...

#ShiftingBaselines and the forgotten giants: integrating megafauna into plant community ecology🦣🌿 With #megafauna lost, have we built #ecology on already-degraded ecosystems? Led @skjoldsoendergaard.bsky.social as part of his thesis - well done! doi.org/10.1111/oik.... #theory #rewilding #vegetation

Don't miss Larry Barham's fantastic talk today at 14.00 CET - the next installment of the Human Palaeosystems in Focus Series, hosted at the @maxplanck.de Institute of Geoanthropology. www.gea.mpg.de/128290/an-ar...

Love this :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6yt...