Gabriele Russo
@gabrieleru1.bsky.social
PhD student in Zooarchaeology at Uni Tübingen - Project REVIVE #Paleolithic #Archaeology #Zooarchaeology #AnimalEcology #Science #Nature
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
🚨 Job alert! The University of Tübingen announces a W3 (Full) Professorship in Early Hominin Evolution in the framework of the DFG Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS':
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨
January 29, 2026 at 8:38 AM
🚨 Job alert! The University of Tübingen announces a W3 (Full) Professorship in Early Hominin Evolution in the framework of the DFG Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS':
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨
It's a week of great discoveries!
Early humans in central China may have been making sophisticated stone tools as early as 160,000 years ago, according to research in Nature Communications. This discovery challenges the perception that stone tool technology in Asia lagged behind Europe and Africa during this period. 🏺 🧪
Technological innovations and hafted technology in central China ~160,000–72,000 years ago - Nature Communications
Stone tools illustrate behavioural complexities in Middle Pleistocene hominin populations. Here, the authors present small dimensional flakes and hafted tools from Xigou, central China, dated to ~160–72 thousand years ago that demonstrate early, complex technological advancements.
go.nature.com
January 27, 2026 at 10:15 PM
It's a week of great discoveries!
Usually, stones and bones get all the attention, but wood was part of the toolkit too, and the evidence is growing! 🪵
A new paper by @annemiekemilks.bsky.social et al. reports the earliest handheld wooden tools (~430 ka) from Marathousa 1 (Greece)! @harvatilab.bsky.social 🦣🧪🏺
A new paper by @annemiekemilks.bsky.social et al. reports the earliest handheld wooden tools (~430 ka) from Marathousa 1 (Greece)! @harvatilab.bsky.social 🦣🧪🏺
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
January 26, 2026 at 9:28 PM
Usually, stones and bones get all the attention, but wood was part of the toolkit too, and the evidence is growing! 🪵
A new paper by @annemiekemilks.bsky.social et al. reports the earliest handheld wooden tools (~430 ka) from Marathousa 1 (Greece)! @harvatilab.bsky.social 🦣🧪🏺
A new paper by @annemiekemilks.bsky.social et al. reports the earliest handheld wooden tools (~430 ka) from Marathousa 1 (Greece)! @harvatilab.bsky.social 🦣🧪🏺
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
🧪🏺 WOWWWW
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi - Nature
A hand stencil painted on a cave wall on a small island off the coast of Sulawesi more than 67,800 years ago suggests a very early occupation of Wallacea.
www.nature.com
January 21, 2026 at 7:07 PM
🧪🏺 WOWWWW
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
I am really excited to share news of this new jaw...until now Paranthropus had been conspicuously absent from the Afar.
Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Afar fossil shows broad distribution and versatility of Paranthropus - Nature
With its attribution to Paranthropus, a 2.6-million-year-old partial mandible expands the range of the genus into the Afar region of Ethiopia and adds to our understanding of hominin evolution in east...
www.nature.com
January 21, 2026 at 4:14 PM
I am really excited to share news of this new jaw...until now Paranthropus had been conspicuously absent from the Afar.
Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Have you ever wondered if the Arctic actually supports “mammoth-like” megaherbivores again? A new study estimates the amount of #mammoth food remaining in the modern Arctic and calculates the potential carrying capacity of up to ~0.38 mammoths/km²! Wild stuff
#Rewilding #Prehistory 🧪🦣❄️
#Rewilding #Prehistory 🧪🦣❄️
Assessing contemporary Arctic habitat availability for a woolly mammoth proxy - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Assessing contemporary Arctic habitat availability for a woolly mammoth proxy
www.nature.com
January 20, 2026 at 11:57 AM
Have you ever wondered if the Arctic actually supports “mammoth-like” megaherbivores again? A new study estimates the amount of #mammoth food remaining in the modern Arctic and calculates the potential carrying capacity of up to ~0.38 mammoths/km²! Wild stuff
#Rewilding #Prehistory 🧪🦣❄️
#Rewilding #Prehistory 🧪🦣❄️
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
January 19, 2026 at 4:07 PM
Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
“For too long, a significant part of our past held beyond everyday reach of Indonesian society. Scholars discussed it, museums displayed it, global narrative was shaped around it, yet the Indonesian people could not see them at home. That era ends today.” -Fadli Zon 🏺
The ‘Java Man’, the first fossil evidence of Homo erectus, is now home
The iconic Homo erectus fossil was welcomed home with a repatriation ceremony and a new museum exhibit in Jakarta.
www.nationalgeographic.com
January 14, 2026 at 3:36 PM
“For too long, a significant part of our past held beyond everyday reach of Indonesian society. Scholars discussed it, museums displayed it, global narrative was shaped around it, yet the Indonesian people could not see them at home. That era ends today.” -Fadli Zon 🏺
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
It seems the actions of EAA are designed to have a UISPP-WAC type split. I wonder by when we will have an EAC?
Reading tip for EAA board 🏺: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi...
Academic freedom is not "anything goes".
1/3
Reading tip for EAA board 🏺: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi...
Academic freedom is not "anything goes".
1/3
January 8, 2026 at 8:49 AM
It seems the actions of EAA are designed to have a UISPP-WAC type split. I wonder by when we will have an EAC?
Reading tip for EAA board 🏺: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi...
Academic freedom is not "anything goes".
1/3
Reading tip for EAA board 🏺: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi...
Academic freedom is not "anything goes".
1/3
🧠🔥 NEW! Fossils from Morocco dated to ~773,000 years ago reveal an ancient African population close to the root of Homo sapiens! This pushes our story deeper in Africa and sheds new light (and questions) on our shared ancestry with Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution
🦣🧪🏺
🦣🧪🏺
Early hominins from Morocco basal to the Homo sapiens lineage - Nature
New hominin fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I (ThI-GH) in Casablanca, Morocco, dated to around 773 thousand years ago are similar in age to Homo antecessor, yet are morphologicall...
www.nature.com
January 7, 2026 at 4:15 PM
🧠🔥 NEW! Fossils from Morocco dated to ~773,000 years ago reveal an ancient African population close to the root of Homo sapiens! This pushes our story deeper in Africa and sheds new light (and questions) on our shared ancestry with Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution
🦣🧪🏺
🦣🧪🏺
A new study shows that Austronesian seafarers transported pigs across the Pacific ~3,500–2,000 years ago 🐖 ⛵️ ! Using genetic and skeletal evidence, the study trace ancient pigs (and humans) migration routes from Island Southeast Asia to Polynesia-highlighting the scale of early ocean voyaging! 🏺🧪
Genomic and morphometric evidence for Austronesian-mediated pig translocation in the Pacific
Several millennia of human-mediated translocation of non-native pig species (genus Sus) to the islands of Wallacea and Oceania have considerably altered local ecosystems. To investigate the timing and...
www.science.org
January 2, 2026 at 6:42 PM
A new study shows that Austronesian seafarers transported pigs across the Pacific ~3,500–2,000 years ago 🐖 ⛵️ ! Using genetic and skeletal evidence, the study trace ancient pigs (and humans) migration routes from Island Southeast Asia to Polynesia-highlighting the scale of early ocean voyaging! 🏺🧪
Really happy to have joined this study, published in November, that finally sorts out the hunting lesion question at Boxgrove 🐎 and adds much-needed experimental reference data for future studies. A big thank you to @annemiekemilks.bsky.social, @mattpope.bsky.social, and all the other co-authors! 🦣🏺
Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear.....
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 28, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Really happy to have joined this study, published in November, that finally sorts out the hunting lesion question at Boxgrove 🐎 and adds much-needed experimental reference data for future studies. A big thank you to @annemiekemilks.bsky.social, @mattpope.bsky.social, and all the other co-authors! 🦣🏺
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
My colleague Ryan McRae and I wrote our annual round up of top discoveries in human evolution from this year for the @plos.org Sci Comm blog - enjoy! scicomm.plos.org/2025/12/19/t...
Top Stories in Human Evolution of 2025 - PLOS SciComm
By Ryan McRae and Briana Pobiner 2025 has been quite the wild year! With more exciting stories in human evolution than we…
scicomm.plos.org
December 20, 2025 at 2:02 AM
My colleague Ryan McRae and I wrote our annual round up of top discoveries in human evolution from this year for the @plos.org Sci Comm blog - enjoy! scicomm.plos.org/2025/12/19/t...
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
New collagen peptide markers from New Guinea fauna: identifying archaeological bone in the tropics
New collagen peptide markers from New Guinea fauna: identifying archaeological bone in the tropics
Abstract. The Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological records of the New Guinea are sparse and poorly understood, yet are hugely relevant for underst
royalsocietypublishing.org
December 17, 2025 at 9:36 PM
New collagen peptide markers from New Guinea fauna: identifying archaeological bone in the tropics
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
So excited to announce the publication of this paper which is the first to come from my PhD! Combing data from the PleistoHERD and DeerPal project we analyse carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur in ungulate bones from the Aquitaine Basin dating between the Ante-Quina and Quina periods.
December 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM
So excited to announce the publication of this paper which is the first to come from my PhD! Combing data from the PleistoHERD and DeerPal project we analyse carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur in ungulate bones from the Aquitaine Basin dating between the Ante-Quina and Quina periods.
Wow! 🔥 New milestone in human evolutionary studies! New clear evidence of deliberate fire-making (and not just fire use) some 400,000 years ago, at a site in ancient Britain!
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
Earliest evidence of making fire
Nature - Baked sediment, heat-shattered artefacts and introduced pyrite in a 400,000-year-old Palaeolithic occupation site in Suffolk, UK provide evidence of intentional fire-making, marking a...
www.nature.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Wow! 🔥 New milestone in human evolutionary studies! New clear evidence of deliberate fire-making (and not just fire use) some 400,000 years ago, at a site in ancient Britain!
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
A New study shows bears' diet dynamically shifts the omnivore-herbivore spectrum depending on #ecosystem productivity. Basically, #bears 🐻 adjust their diet with climate + resource availability 🌿. And this has huge implications for modern conservation and interpretations about past ecosystems 🧪🦣
Dynamic omnivory shapes the functional role of large carnivores under global change - Nature Communications
Omnivores like bears can switch between plant and animal diets, potentially helping them respond to changing conditions. By combining modern and fossil data, this study shows that bears shift toward c...
www.nature.com
December 7, 2025 at 8:54 AM
A New study shows bears' diet dynamically shifts the omnivore-herbivore spectrum depending on #ecosystem productivity. Basically, #bears 🐻 adjust their diet with climate + resource availability 🌿. And this has huge implications for modern conservation and interpretations about past ecosystems 🧪🦣
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature
The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.
www.nature.com
December 3, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In a cave in Liguria, ca. 14 thousand years ago, a group of humans and a single dog walked together in a cave and explored its depths. Their overlapping footprints and tracks are one of the oldest direct evidence of human-dog interactions 🐾🐕 #DogDomestication 🦣🏺🧪
The dog domestication: new ichnological evidence from the Upper Palaeolithic of the Bàsura cave (Toirano, NW Italy)
The Grotta della Bàsura (Bàsura Cave) provides invaluable evidence of human-canid interactions during the Upper Palaeolithic. It offers unique insight…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:46 AM
In a cave in Liguria, ca. 14 thousand years ago, a group of humans and a single dog walked together in a cave and explored its depths. Their overlapping footprints and tracks are one of the oldest direct evidence of human-dog interactions 🐾🐕 #DogDomestication 🦣🏺🧪
New paper on #Neandertal #cannibalism from Goyet 👀🦴 Turns out the victims were mostly short-stature females & juveniles, likely outsiders. More than survival cannibalism evidence points to inter-group predation or deeply social conflict... #Paleolithic #Paleoanthropology
Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey
www.nature.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:05 PM
New paper on #Neandertal #cannibalism from Goyet 👀🦴 Turns out the victims were mostly short-stature females & juveniles, likely outsiders. More than survival cannibalism evidence points to inter-group predation or deeply social conflict... #Paleolithic #Paleoanthropology
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
So proud to see our new paper out in PNAS spearheaded by @emilypigott.bsky.social She found a tiny 46,000 yr old Neanderthal bone at Starosele (Crimea). DNA work revealed long-distance connections across Eurasia, supported by stone tool evidence @heasvienna.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
October 29, 2025 at 9:17 AM
So proud to see our new paper out in PNAS spearheaded by @emilypigott.bsky.social She found a tiny 46,000 yr old Neanderthal bone at Starosele (Crimea). DNA work revealed long-distance connections across Eurasia, supported by stone tool evidence @heasvienna.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
"We found no evidence of migratory behavior in species that exhibit this behavior today. Ancient foragers likely hunted prey that were available year-round, consistent with zooarchaeological and genetic evidence for reduced mobility at the end of the Pleistocene." 🏺🧪🦣
Biogeochemical evidence for targeted landscape use in ancient foragers of Malawi - Communications Earth & Environment
Foragers hunted small game locally and procured most large prey in riparian habitats and Afromontane grasslands to the southeast of the Kasitu Valley of northern Malawi, suggesting that migratory beha...
www.nature.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:36 AM
"We found no evidence of migratory behavior in species that exhibit this behavior today. Ancient foragers likely hunted prey that were available year-round, consistent with zooarchaeological and genetic evidence for reduced mobility at the end of the Pleistocene." 🏺🧪🦣
A new landmark study of fossil teeth confirms that adaptable generalists survived Pleistocene climate shifts, while specialized picky eaters went extinct. This warns that modern conservation must prioritize habitat diversity to build the resilient ecosystems essential for survival.
#Conservation 🧪🦣
#Conservation 🧪🦣
Faunal persistence and ecological flexibility in Pleistocene Southeast Asia revealed through multi-isotope analysis
Multi-isotope approaches provide valuable insights into mammalian ecological niches and factors contributing to extirpation.
www.science.org
October 21, 2025 at 1:05 PM
A new landmark study of fossil teeth confirms that adaptable generalists survived Pleistocene climate shifts, while specialized picky eaters went extinct. This warns that modern conservation must prioritize habitat diversity to build the resilient ecosystems essential for survival.
#Conservation 🧪🦣
#Conservation 🧪🦣
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei🏺🧪
C. Mongle, Meave Leakey, @louiseleakey.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Suggests P. boisei capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supports proposed dichotomy of dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo
C. Mongle, Meave Leakey, @louiseleakey.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Suggests P. boisei capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supports proposed dichotomy of dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo
October 17, 2025 at 3:31 PM
New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei🏺🧪
C. Mongle, Meave Leakey, @louiseleakey.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Suggests P. boisei capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supports proposed dichotomy of dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo
C. Mongle, Meave Leakey, @louiseleakey.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Suggests P. boisei capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supports proposed dichotomy of dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo
Reposted by Gabriele Russo
