Happy to share our new paper on non-destructive FTIR analysis on silcrete artefacts from Mertenhof and Diepkloof with heating temperature reconstructions. Is the data beautiful and clean? No. But is it still meaningful? Yes! Study led by Will Archer: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

From Judge Dredd to bottlenose dolphins, the work of Leonie Sedman, Curator of Heritage and Collections Care, really does cover everything. Find out more about Leonie and what she gets up to in this @heritageinstitute.bsky.social interview: www.liverpool.ac.uk/heritage-ins...

Achieved an academic milestone today - having our research be an obscure trivia answer on a quiz show! Thanks @felixthehauskat.bsky.social for sharing this with me! Everyone knows the answer, right…? 🔵

Looking forward to presenting our new work on evidence for recurrent and increasing control of fire at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Beeches Pit today at the Pathways to Ancient Britain workshop at Queen Mary University 🔥 🔥 🔥. Really exciting results and paper on the way soon 😃

🧪 Lab-based microstratigraphic excavation for high-resolution archaeological sampling. #ICArEHB researchers Aldeias, Goldberg, McPherron, Li and Mallol co-author this #PaleolithicArchaeology study in J Paleo Arch using #Microstratigraphy. 🔗 10.1007/s41982-025-00253-y

Please join us this Thursday, 30th April, at 13:00 BST, for our final talk of the semester. We will be joined by Prof Nick Ashton (British Museum), and Dr Sally Hoare (University of Liverpool). If you'd like to attend, please register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/1342a8...

780,000-year-old charcoal from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov reveals that early hominins may have chosen their campsites partly for firewood access. Even the wood they burned tells us how they read their landscape. #Paleoanthropology #Acheulian #HumanEvolution www.anthropology.net/p/the-wood-t...

🏺🧪 New paper: heated chert from Australia +45 Ka, poss. > 55 Ka. 15% of analysed #lithics were heated and later knapped. I would have liked more on technological aspects, to refine whether pieces worked before & after heating show differences in reduction etc. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Since 2019, HERI has run women-focused field camps for archaeology & geology students. Female-led and hands-on, they provide field skills, mentorship, and safe spaces—building confident, resilient researchers ready to study #Africa’s rich heritage.

Come and share your Palaeolithic research in London this June! Unravelling the Palaeolithic is coming to the @uclarchaeology.bsky.social and we're looking forward to seeing you there. 🦣🏺

They've *always* been very good dogs... Latest evidence unearthed at @liverpooluni.bsky.social excavation sites reveals dogs were domesticated much earlier than previously thought. 15,800 years ago/10 @weratedogs.com 🐕🐶🐩

Setting up for filming our YouTube video on the new fire evidence from Barnham. I will explain the role magnetics and hydrocarbon analysis played in differentiating human from natural fire 🔥 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Interested in research like this? Join us June 19-20th for more at Unravelling the Palaeolithic 2026 Call for papers below: sites.google.com/view/unravel...

Deadline moved to March 20th! Go submit your pyroarchaeology abstract and join us in Poznań to talk fire! #pyroarchaeology #UISPP2026

E-mail us and join the mailing list at [email protected] if you are a jobbing researcher with a pre-2019 PhD. We will give peer support and advice. #MCRHumNetwork

There's still time to sign up to this afternoon's talk, given by Dr Rosa Huguet! If you'd like to join, please register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/3195e0... We hope to see you there!

🔥Wood, Smoke and Science! #LivUni’s Dr Ceren Kabukcu was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science podcast. Drawing on her archaeobotany expertise, she explained how carbonised plant remains and dental evidence reveal how fire shaped human diets and eating habits. 🎧 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Join us in Poznań for the XXI #UISPP2026 congress: Session S -1F: Multi-method, multi-proxy: promoting multidisciplinary approaches in #pyroarchaeology organized by @segovandevelde.bsky.social Chris Miller and myself. Abstract submission deadline Feb 28th! uispp2026.syskonf.pl

New paper out! Does fire erase use-wear? Using experimental burning and 3D confocal analysis, we show that heating modifies surfaces but does not erase use-wear signals. @hcelab.bsky.social

Almost ready to start sampling for analyses from this amazing stalagmite from Wookey Hole Caves. Fingers crossed for nice results.

After a major grant rejection this week only one thing for it. Sack it all off and go climbing Instead! At least I understand the grading system in climbing 😂

Unravelling the Palaeolithic 2026! Join us for two days of all things Palaeolithic, Pleistocene and Early Human Origins at UCL Institute of Archaeology 19-20th June. Call for papers is now open and tickets are on sale! Check out our website for more information. sites.google.com/view/unravel...

MatrixERC StG works across archaeological sites from all over Europe, following the microscopic traces of late Neandertals and the first modern humans. We study intact sediment samples, checking whether the archaeological layers are truly preserved and looking for ancient DNA, proteins, and lipids.

We are delighted to announce our timetable of talks for Semester 2 of the 2025/26 academic year! 🥳🤩 As always, all of our talks will be streamed online and are open to anyone. Our first talk will be on the 12.02.26. More details will be released closer to the time. We hope to see you there!

Breaking News! ✨ @annemiekemilks.bsky.social , @katharv.bsky.social , @harvatilab.bsky.social and colleagues publish important artefacts from the MIS12 cold stage in Greece. Great forensic work and a little glimpse of what we are missing from sites without the preservation of wood. 🌳🦣🏺1/3

Science article on the discovery here from @andrewcurry.com with great recon art by G. Prieto www.science.org/content/arti... 3/3

Some inspiration for a cold day during bleak times. Half million year old handaxes from Boxgrove, Sussex, laid out for a photoshoot with Dr Claire Harris at the @britishmuseum.bsky.social #MondayMotivation 🦣🏺

More Breaking Palaeo-news! 🐘 Boxgrove preserved oldest Elephant Bone beyond Africa. 🐘 Early Neanderthals using bone to shape beautiful tools. 🐘 New research from Simon Parfitt @uclarchaeology.bsky.social Silvia Bello of the @nhm-london.bsky.social. 🦣🏺🐘https://share.google/20WUjY5TybDAr4QoT

The earliest confirmed evidence of an adult cremation pyre has been discovered in Malawi! 🔥 theconversation.com/oldest-known...

Another of my excellent colleagues, trained by the very lovely Emeritus Prof. John Gowlett.

Featuring the flame-tastic work of the Faculty's Dr Sally Hoare @sallygeoarch.bsky.social 🔥

🔥🔥 We're very proud to see Dr Sally Hoare from the University as one of the bright sparks (ahem) who helped discover humans had been able to create fire much earlier than previously thought. Read about this amazing work here 🎇

BBC coverage of breaking news announcing the earliest evidence for humanly made fire. From Barnham, UK. Quite probably early Neanderthal people with a late Acheulean culture 🦣🏺🔥 www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Congrats to the authors for a very nice paper, inc @sallygeoarch.bsky.social from @livancworlds.bsky.social [and in case anyone is interested in the nuts & bolts of science, the peer review file is available and shows that this system can indeed work well, even for 'controversial' discoveries]

🧪🏺🦣 Strong case for *oldest fire-starting* 🔥 capacity, before 400 Ka, suggested by multi-stranded analysis: geochem, magnetic, sedimentary evidence of anthropogenic burning, + heated lithics + remains of iron pyrite. Behaviourally heading towards #Neanderthals. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Are we... Yes... Another experiment of #FLAHME and #PALFUEL project... This time exploring embers and braziers with temporal coverture 🪵 Fire emission #health @iphes-cerca.bsky.social

QRA ADM in Brighton, abstract submission deadline 10th November!!! Submit your abstracts for a talk or a poster @quaternaryra.bsky.social sites.google.com/view/qraadmb...

New paper! Cave site formation processes, climate change and hominin activities: A high-resolution microstratigraphic investigation on the terminal Pleistocene deposits at Fodongdi Cave, Yunnan Province, South China doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

Looking forward today to the “Paleoenvironmental DNA and Human Evolution” Symposium here in our department, featuring talks by Viviane Slon, Mikel Pedersen, Karina Sand, Ben Vernot, Pere Gelabert, Mareike Stahlschmidt and Susanna Sawyer. sedaDNA, so exciting! @univie.ac.at @heasvienna.bsky.social

📄 New paper 📣 of @matrixerc.bsky.social & @welkergroup.bsky.social! We show that microstratigraphic-scale #paleoproteomics works in intact sediments - opening new ways to explore ancient ecosystems & hominin behaviour 🌍🦴 @erc.europa.eu @icarehb.bsky.social 🔗 academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

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...

#ESHE2025 Giulia Gallo ‘ Estimating fire duration through bioapatite crystallite growth in Middle Palaeolithic contexts’ Bioapatite crystals: XRD/point of calcination. Nice experiment! Roc de Marsa (~90Ka) & Le Moustier (~55Ka): 10-20 hrs fire duration, at Le Moustier assoc w burning megafauna

Don’t miss our next ICArEHB Experimental Archaeology Seminar. We will welcome Dr William Chase Murphree to talk about new geoarchaeological experiments investigating Upper Palaeolithic fire use. 14:00 (GMT) on the 7th of October. Free for all, join here icarehb.com/lexa/

We are thrilled to announce our timetable of seminars for the upcoming semester! As always, all of our talks will be on Zoom and open to everyone. Our first talk will take place on the 2nd October at 13:00-14:00 BST. The Zoom link will be available closer to the time. We hope to see you there! 🥳

Stones and Fire in the West African Savanna www.anthropology.net/p/stones-and...

Our new study lead produced enhanced paleo‑geomorphological mapping of the Ararat Depression to decode how shifting landforms shaped human movement and settlement in the Late Pleistocene doi.org/10.1016/j.qu... @humendylab.bsky.social @arikmalinsky-b.bsky.social @yannismicrooikon.bsky.social

Fantastic day (research trip) to Wookey Hole Caves - witches, dinosaurs and removal of a large stalagmite for analysis (climate and fire) 🔥

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/... We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

Fieldwork day to Creswell Crags as part of our new project "Fire & Climate: Speleothems and the British Palaeolithic" funded by @britishacademy.bsky.social with Rob Hosfield & Sam Nicholson #soot #fire #aDNA