Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
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eslembenarous.bsky.social
Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
@eslembenarous.bsky.social
African Pleistocene Geochronologist and Archaeologist |
MSCA 🇪🇺 Postdoc Fellow at Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) | Associated Researcher at MPI-GEA and MNHN
ALERT - One day left to submit session abstract for the 17th Congress of the Pan African Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies! Check here the website : panaf2026moz.com
PANAF2026
panaf2026moz.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
Internet is shut down in Tanzania. Haven’t heard from friends in a few days. Hoping for the best.
Tanzania election: Hundreds feared dead in crackdown on protests
A diplomatic source tells the BBC there is credible evidence that at least 500 people have been killed.
www.bbc.com
November 2, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
We now have studies from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Malawi all suggesting the same thing: that African savanna mammals migrated *very little* before the Holocene!
"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 2:52 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
“We have 1,544 measles cases this year, 92% in unvaccinated people, and 3 deaths. The problem isn’t the vaccine — it’s that people aren’t getting it. O’Neill hasn’t offered a single scientific rationale for breaking up MMR.”

@aniloza.bsky.social
@statnews.com
www.statnews.com/2025/10/06/t...
Acting CDC director calls for MMR vaccine to be broken up into three shots
There's no evidence that breaking up the MMR shot would make the immunization safer or more effective.
www.statnews.com
October 7, 2025 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
La campagne de dons 2025 du @fondspresselibre.bsky.social a commencé ! Pour soutenir les médias indépendants, contrer l’hégémonie des médias des milliardaires et faire entendre d’autres voix face à leur radicalisation extrême-droitière, il est vivement conseillé de participer. 1/2
⚡ L’info est un champ de bataille.

Un seul contre-pouvoir tient encore debout : la presse indépendante. Ensemble, faisons-la grandir.

🎯 Objectif : 100.000 € avant le 30 oct. pour financer un autre journalisme.

➡️ La campagne démarre aujourd’hui : fondspresselibre.org/soutenir
Il reste un contre-pouvoir. Soutenez-le. | APPEL À SOUTIEN
YouTube video by Fonds pour une presse libre
youtu.be
October 3, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Immensely happy to see this paper out, that we have started in 2021 ! Well done @aliceleplongeon.bsky.social for leading it !
📣New paper alert

doi.org/10.1007/s109...

How did populations in tropical regions cope with the global climatic change around the LGM?

While the tropics are often perceived as having been less impacted by the LGM, we show that -as is often the case - it is more complex than it seems!
The Last Glacial Maximum in the Tropics: Human Responses to Global Change, 30–10 ka - Journal of World Prehistory
The world at 18,000 BP, published by Gamble and Soffer (The world at 18,000 BP. Vol. 2: low latitude, Unwin Hyman, 1990), represents the first, and so far the only, attempt at characterising and discussing the impact of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) on human societies on a global scale. At the time, they highlighted that research and data on the LGM in southern latitudes and the tropics in particular were scant. Since 1990, however, many sites dated to the LGM and located in tropical latitudes have been published. Many paradigms have changed regarding the peopling of the Americas, which allows the archaeology of this continent to be integrated into global scale studies of the LGM. The development of Pleistocene archaeology in tropical contexts, in parallel with methodological advances in cultural, geosciences and palaeoenvironmental studies have strongly reshaped what we know of the antiquity of human occupation in tropical regions and specific human–environment interactions. This article provides for the first time a pan-tropical perspective on the impact of the LGM on human groups living within the tropical latitudes, drawing from case studies in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, specifically regions which have up until now never been discussed together. To this end, we focus on six different tropical regions between 30 and 10 ka. We present the archaeological and paleoenvironmental data available in these areas, along with proposed relationships for variations in these two records. Finally, we discuss at the regional scale the presence or absence of human changes (site density and techno-cultural change or continuity) before, during and immediately after the LGM.
doi.org
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
📣New paper alert

doi.org/10.1007/s109...

How did populations in tropical regions cope with the global climatic change around the LGM?

While the tropics are often perceived as having been less impacted by the LGM, we show that -as is often the case - it is more complex than it seems!
The Last Glacial Maximum in the Tropics: Human Responses to Global Change, 30–10 ka - Journal of World Prehistory
The world at 18,000 BP, published by Gamble and Soffer (The world at 18,000 BP. Vol. 2: low latitude, Unwin Hyman, 1990), represents the first, and so far the only, attempt at characterising and discussing the impact of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) on human societies on a global scale. At the time, they highlighted that research and data on the LGM in southern latitudes and the tropics in particular were scant. Since 1990, however, many sites dated to the LGM and located in tropical latitudes have been published. Many paradigms have changed regarding the peopling of the Americas, which allows the archaeology of this continent to be integrated into global scale studies of the LGM. The development of Pleistocene archaeology in tropical contexts, in parallel with methodological advances in cultural, geosciences and palaeoenvironmental studies have strongly reshaped what we know of the antiquity of human occupation in tropical regions and specific human–environment interactions. This article provides for the first time a pan-tropical perspective on the impact of the LGM on human groups living within the tropical latitudes, drawing from case studies in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, specifically regions which have up until now never been discussed together. To this end, we focus on six different tropical regions between 30 and 10 ka. We present the archaeological and paleoenvironmental data available in these areas, along with proposed relationships for variations in these two records. Finally, we discuss at the regional scale the presence or absence of human changes (site density and techno-cultural change or continuity) before, during and immediately after the LGM.
doi.org
September 24, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Fascinating paper led by @matduval64.bsky.social, Laura Martín-Francés and Rachel Wood, demonstrating the impact of mCT scanning on collagen preservation in bones and teeth and how it affects radiocarbon dating results.
ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...
On the impact of micro-CT scanning on radiocarbon dating of fossil material: A cautionary note for the palaeoanthropological community and beyond - ORA - Oxford University Research Archive
In this study, we investigate the impact of X-rays produced by conventional mCT instruments on fossil materials dated by radiocarbon. Our results clearly show a decrease on the collagen preservation in fossil and modern bones and teeth, and therefore on the radiocarbon analytical results (in
ora.ox.ac.uk
July 15, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
We published a new paper on enamel paleoproteomics from teeth up to 18 million years old from the Turkana Basin in Kenya. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature
The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...
www.nature.com
July 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
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 expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature
Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...
www.nature.com
June 18, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
Published today in @nature.com our new study on the drivers of the successful dispersal of modern humans out of Africa! A huge, interdisciplinary team effort long in the making, headed by @elliescerri.bsky.social . Glad to have contributed! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #archaeology #Evolution
Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature
Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...
www.nature.com
June 18, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I'm really pleased to be attending the Fyssen Foundation's young researchers awards ceremony in Paris 🤩😍 @fondationfyssen.bsky.social
June 13, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
🔊🔊 Je ne pourrai malheureusement pas participer à la manifestation aujourd'hui, mais je suis de tout cœur avec mes collègues qui vont défendre à Paris l'archéologie française. Cet amendement ne doit pas casser l'un des plus beaux dispositifs d'archéologie préventive au monde !
Archéologie : communiqué de presse de l’intersyndicale SGPA-CGT / FSU Culture / SUD Culture / CNT

Manifestation demain 12h place de la République en direction du ministère de la Culture, départ à 13h

www.cgt-culture.fr/archeologie-...
June 12, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
There is still one day left to apply for our 4 year postdoctoral position here in Vienna...!
Job alert!
@katerinad.bsky.social and I are looking for an archaeologist/archaeological scientist to join us on a 4 year post-doc, helping to manage and participate in field and lab work on 2 ERC grants in our group. We would love to hear from you via the link! 👇
jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Postdoct...
April 24, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
Fatima Hassouna, photojournaliste et chroniqueuse du quotidien à #Gaza, tuée dans une frappe avec dix de ses proches. La jeune femme était au cœur d’un film documentaire sélectionné pour le Festival de Cannes. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...
Fatima Hassouna, photojournaliste et chroniqueuse du quotidien à Gaza, tuée dans une frappe avec dix de ses proches
La jeune femme était au cœur d’un film documentaire de la réalisatrice Sepideh Farsi sélectionné pour le Festival de Cannes.
www.lemonde.fr
April 17, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
La réponse de Harvard aux menaces de l'administration Trump (9 milliards $ en jeu) :

« L’Université ne renoncera ni à son indépendance ni à ses droits constitutionnels.

Ni Harvard ni aucune autre université privée ne peut tolérer d’être mise sous tutelle du gouvernement fédéral »

Simple. Basique.
April 14, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Amazing new publication from burial medieval site in Tunisia ! Congrats team !!
April 4, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
Vraiment très heureux d'avoir été l'invité d'Afrique, mémoires d'un continent. On perd parfois confiance en les médias, surtout en ce moment. Et puis un jour on rencontre le talentueux Elgas! Merci @diamacoune.bsky.social ! @rfi.fr
Ce dimanche dans Afrique, mémoires d'un continent, le colonialisme vert et sa longue histoire sur le continent africain. 8h 10 temps universel et podcast déjà disponible en ligne sur rfi.fr. Avec un @guillaumblanc.bsky.social olympique.
March 21, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Wonderful post from @antiquityj.bsky.social to celebrate the Tunisian Independence Day!
Tunisia gained independence #OnThisDay in AD 1956, so here's some Tunisian #archaeology! Tophets are Phoenician and Punic sanctuaries where cremated infants and children were buried. Long thought to be products of child sacrifice, new research suggests quite the opposite.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
March 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
Join us for our next Human Palaeosystems in Focus seminar today with Dr Li Li of @icarehb.bsky.social

“From Mechanics to Gestures: Understanding Knapping Actions Through Controlled Lithic Experiments”

eu02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
March 12, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by Eslem Ben Arous (She/Her)
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...
Constraining the age of the Middle Stone Age locality of Bargny (Senegal) through a combined OSL-ESR dating approach
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is the major chrono-cultural phase associated with the emergence and evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa. Despite its impor…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 28, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Check out our last project gallery if you want to know more about our Sidi Zin Project ! Thanks @antiquityj.bsky.social !
NEW North Africa is a key location in #HumanEvolution. A new project explores the transition from Acheulean to Middle #StoneAge at Sidi Zin, Tunisia, shedding light on the poorly-understood disappearance of Homo erectus and emergence of Homo sapiens. 🏺

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
February 27, 2025 at 8:06 PM