Her research there provided critical insights into the transition to farming in Southwest Asia, a region where many of the crops and animals we farm today were first domesticated.

She also excavated in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Syria, making many important contributions to our field.

@mahsa-project.bsky.social @maeasamproject.bsky.social

Observations from these dynamics in the past and present, will guide predictive modelling of future trajectories of change under different scenarios, with the goal of identifying options that will best support eastern Africa’s mountain socioecological systems as opportunities and challenges emerge.

To achieve this, they will study the principal services provided by mountain ecosystems (food, energy and water) and biocultural diversity, and investigate how societies have exploited, co-existed with, and even enhanced nature.

The team will be focussing on nine East African mountain settings to illustrate how deeper understanding of past trajectories of change and continuity can generate novel pathways for more sustainable futures.

The next has been awarded to Prof Rob Marchant @york.ac.uk, Prof Laura Pereira, Prof Unai Pascual and Professor Thomas Hickler in collaboration with Dr Stefania Merlo @cam.ac.uk and Prof Paul Lane @cam.ac.uk for the AFRI-CAN Project.

The team aims to find why and how some hunter-gatherer societies experienced population growth comparable to that of early farming societies. The project will compare prehistoric hunter-gatherers from Japan, Pacific North West Coast, Atlantic North-East Coast, and the Baltic.

The first has been awarded to Prof Enrico Crema @cam.ac.uk, Prof. Oliver Craig @york.ac.uk, Prof. Peter Jordan (Lund University, Sweden) and Prof Anna Marie Prentiss (University of Montana, USA) for the FORAGER Project.

Many thanks to all speakers, discussants, and participants for two days of thought-provoking discussions, and to the McDonald Institute for its financial and logistical support.

Presentations showcased cutting-edge research, ranging from Egyptian prehistory to contemporary Northeast Africa, from Cypriot archaeology to palaeoproteomics.

This interdisciplinary event proved particularly successful in demonstrating many ways in which Egyptology may be provided with new geographic and scientific horizons: spatially, chronologically, methodologically, theoretically, and comparatively.