Emanuele Cancellieri

Celebrating the women at ICArEHB, then and now.

From childhood curiosity to careers uncovering the past, we’re proud of the women shaping archaeology at ICArEHB.

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science 💜
#WomenInScience #EveryVoiceInScience #11February

... now with pictures instead of random black squares!

It has arrived, the day of the superb owl! Here's a 10,000 year-old eagle-owl talon worn as an ornament. My team recovered it from the burial of a newborn girl nicknamed Neve at Arma Veirana, a cave in the Italian Maritime Alps. 🏺🧪 #superbowl

Coupling geometric morphometrics and machine learning for mandibular sex estimation in Late Pleistocene and Late Modern populations - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Coupling geometric morphometrics and machine learning for mandibular sex estimation in Late Pleistocene and Late Modern populations

♂️♀️ AI achieves 90% accuracy sex estimation from Ice Age jawbones? #ICArEHB's Ricardo Godinho leads the breakthrough study: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
#Bioarchaeology #MachineLearning #Palaeoanthropology

Portable ER-FTIR as a non-destructive method to pre-screen collagen for ZooMS analysis in archaeology In the last decades, archaeology has witnessed a significant increase in the use of biomolecular analyses to study a variety of materials, including s…

🦴✨ How do we know if an archaeological bone still preserves collagen — without damaging it?

Check it out our new paper on portable ER-FTIR:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Proud team work with @Krista McGrath @Cristina Lemorini @Stella Nunziate Cesaro @Silvia Soncin

Earliest evidence for intentional cremation of human remains in Africa The world’s oldest in situ adult funeral pyre (~9500 years old) shows complex mortuary behaviors among ancient African foragers.

🔥 Earliest cremation evidence in Africa (~9500 yrs ago)! #ICArEHB's Gina Buckley & Flora Schilt co-author Science Advances paper: doi.org/10.1126/scia... #FuneraryPractices #Archaeology

In Dec 2025, I published a short comment on whether the emergence of AI has been as revolutionary as other moments of innovation in our species' history (e.g., emergence of technology or agriculture). On balance, current evidence suggests to me that it isn't.
www.isita-org.com/jass/Content...

🥛 When did Iberians start drinking raw milk? #ICArEHB's Maria João Valente, Hugo Oliveira & Maria João Martins trace it w/ archaeogenetics: doi.org/10.51679/oph... #Zooarchaeology #Prehistory

🎓 FCT PhD Fellowships 2026
ICArEHB invites inquisitive and motivated candidates to pursue a PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology or Primatology through the national FCT Program.
📍See our poster & details: www.icarehb.com/fct-phd-fell...
#PhD #Archaeology #FCT #ICArEHB

Differential Taphonomic Behavior of Flint Types: Experimental Insights and Implications for the Middle Stone Age Assemblages of Wadi Lazalim in the Northern Sahara (Kebili, Tunisia) - Journal of Archa... Several syn and post-depositional processes are responsible for different degrees of site and assemblage formation and disturbance. Understanding the processes that lead to archaeological site formati...

Hot off the press! Led by Olivier Scancarello, in collaboration with amazing colleagues and institutions in Tunisia, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Lithic Miniaturization and Technological Innovation on the Southern Dispersal Route Out of Africa - Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology Over the past fifteen years, the Dhofar Archaeological Project has mapped 272 Middle Stone Age/Middle Palaeolithic sites in southern Oman, each exhibiting some extent of Nubian Levallois technology. T...

#Oman #MSA
New paper is OUT!
We trace how Dhofar’s MSA shifts from Nubian Levallois cores to the miniaturized Mudayyan industry—highlighting changing technologies along the southern dispersal route out of Africa. @arduq.bsky.social @icarehb.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🔍 What’s it like to be an early-career archaeologist in Africa? Degsew Mekonnen, Osman Khaleel, Humphrey Nyambiya & Nompumelelo Maringa explore challenges from funding gaps to limited mentoring.
🔗 doi.org/10.32028/exn...
#Archaeology #Africa #ICArEHB #EarlyCareerResearchers #ExNovoJournal

Shelters and bones: Site-specific archaeofaunal taphonomy for identifying formation processes in Saharan Holocene rock shelters - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences This study investigates natural syn- and post-depositional processes affecting terrestrial mammal bones from the Takarkori rock shelter in the hyper-arid Tadrart Acacus massif, south-western Libya. Th...

Happy to share with you the new paper on taphonomy in arid environments in collaboration with my friend and colleague @roccoro.bsky.social. Check it out!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

👣 What can ancient #footprints tell us about #movement, #behaviour, and #technology in #prehistory?
Join us for the next #LEXA seminar, exploring traces and early #transport innovations.

🗓️ 4 Nov | 🕑 14:00 GMT | 🌍 Online via #Zoom
🔗 icarehb.com/lexa

#ICArEHB PhD candidate Osama Samawi explores ancient innovation in his new blog post “Stone Tools on Repeat” with @ACORJordan 🪨
Discover how #Neolithic communities at Tell Abu Suwwan reused stone flakes as cores — early #sustainability in #Archaeology!
👉 publications.acorjordan.org/2025/10/17/s...

💡 How to ID archaeological bones in resin?A team of researchers, including ICArEHB members Paul Goldberg, Shannon McPherron, William Chase Murphree, and Vera Aldeias explore new paleoproteomics methods.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/pnas...
#Archaeology #Paleoproteomics #ICArEHB

#ICArEHB PhD student Osama Samawi co-organised the “Paleolithic Jordan: The State of the Art” #workshop in Athens during #ICHAJ16, discussing the #Paleolithic record of #Jordan and fostering collaboration in #Archaeology and #HumanEvolution.
👉 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Happy and honoured to share this paper with @ercrema.bsky.social about pottery in Early Holocene Africa! Check out more in the thread!

Imagem with the 6 team members altogether. There is also the name of the porject and its logo and institutional logos. The color is light red.

The ERC Project MATRIX explores one of the big questions in our past: how Neanderthals disappeared as modern humans spread across Europe. Meet the team behind it and learn more about our research on sediments, ancient DNA, proteins, lipids & human evolution
👉 matrix.icarehb.com

🌍Fieldwork, Communities, and Conflicts in Northestern Africa

Join us in the next LPNEA workshop on 29-30 Sept in Bracciano and online! To register, scan the QR code or write an email to neafrica[at]gmail[.]com

Very much looking forward to it!

Africa's Oldest Mummy Is a Toddler Who Died 5,400 Years Ago, Nearly a Millennium Before the Egyptians Started Mummifying Their Dead Libya's civil war has placed the Uan Muhuggiag mummy at risk. But negotiations are underway to transport the rare artifact from Libya to Rome, where it will undergo restoration and scientific analysis

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/afri...
Researchers have noticed striking similarities between the Uan Muhuggiag child and Egyptian mummification practices. Both cultures placed their dead in fetal positions, used ostrich eggshell beads as jewelry and removed internal organs to prevent decay.

💔

Call for Papers!!!
We are holding a session for Early Career Researchers-Innovations in Isotope Analysis 👩🏻‍🔬 at 2026 SAA’s.
Please feel free to share or reach out for submission details if you are interested in joining our session!

#SAfA2025 kicks off today in #Faro, #Portugal!
Hosted by #ICArEHB, we’re ready to welcome the global #AfricanistArchaeology community for a week of connection and knowledge-sharing at the #CrossroadsThroughTime.

Rock art relief depicting humans hunting animals such as elephants, with the text 'African Archaeology, Antiquity' overlaid.

The Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) conference in Faro, Portugal begins tomorrow! To celebrate the occasion, we've put together a collection of articles on #AfricanArchaeology and they will all be *absolutely free* for the duration of the event 🏺

🔗 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Scientists could be accidentally damaging fossils with a method we thought was safe A common scanning method used to create ‘virtual copies’ of precious fossils could be erasing some of the crucial information held within.

theconversation.com/scientists-c...

Experimental Protocol for Cooking Rabbits and its Archaeological Implications - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Small prey such as rabbits are present in Middle Paleolithic and are abundant in the diet of Upper Paleolithic human groups in southwestern Europe, especially in the Iberian Peninsula. Several archaeo...

🐰🔥 Excited to share our new paper from the #snackormenu project: we have developed an experimental protocol to accurately diagnose rabbit cooking and processing methods. Check it out! doi.org/10.1007/s108... #Zooarchaeology #Taphonomy #Archaeology @icarehb.bsky.social @uv.es

Supporting scientists who study and work abroad

Studying or working abroad comes with many challenges but also great opportunities. What can help early-career researchers navigate this journey? Check out my answer (and those of other researchers) in this @science.org piece: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #NextGenSci

Postdoc in Geochronology / Plio-Pleistocene Geology
Join the ERC WRAP project at ICArEHB!
Apply now 👉 www.icarehb.com/research-pos...

INTERNATIONAL TENDER FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF A POST-DOCTORAL ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER International tender to recruit one (1) ) post-doctoral initial level researcher to perform duties in the scientific area of Palaeolithic Archaeology or related areas, under the research project “ERC ...

Calling all palaeolithic archaeologists. Come and work with me on a really exciting new survey and excavation project in Uganda: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/348570