Dr Huw Groucutt

Jane Goodall (1934–2025) Photo Credit: Joel Saget/AFP via Getty

Jane Goodall obituary:
Pioneer primatologist who inspired generations of scientists 🏺🧪👩‍🔬
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

She was a tireless advocate for conservation, the welfare of captive chimpanzees and the protection of habitats.

Looking forward to giving this talk on October 15th. Open to all.

Rest in peace Jane Goodall. A real hero.

Anatomy of a sunset. Wied iż-Żurrieq.

End of Latnija 2025 excavations

Just finished a very successful first excavation with my TerraForm team ❤

Had the privilege of being involved in investigations of Xrobb l-Għaġin Neolithic 'temple' today. Super interesting.

Some recent views of the lovely geology of the south coast of Gozo. Lovely limestone. ❤

YouTube video by Jamie Hodgkins Homo naledi the lies

The continuing saga of the Homo naledi trainwreck www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XJd...

Early Neolithic Pottery Production in the Maltese Islands: Initiating a Għar Dalam and Skorba Pottery Fabric Classification The Early Neolithic (EN) period (5500–4800 BCE) marks the first sedentary settlement of the Maltese Islands by farmers. Despite advances in petrographic and archaeometric studies of pottery in Maltese...

Important new paper on early Neolithic pottery in Malta. Congrats to the authors. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

@lemoustier.bsky.social The real question is what biscuits did Homo naledi enjoy?

We have not traditionally had biscuits really, but as a lot of Italians have joined my team, there has been an increase in coffee quality and consistency 👌

Playmobil figure kitted out as prehistoric iceman Ötzi.

#OTD 19 September 1991, walkers in the high Ötztal alps on the Italian border, found a body melting out of the ice. It turned out to be the remains of a c.5200 year old man preserved with all his kit.
Of course, it was essential to replicate him in Playmobil.
1🧵
#PlaymobilÖtzi
#PlaymobilInfestation

I mean the best and acceptable are very different beasts.

Nubian Levallois cores from Shukbah Cave (a–h) and Bisitun (i) and Nubian Levallois points from Shukbah cave (j–n) which feature a medial distal ridge through distal divergent and/or bilateral shaping. (a–c, e–g, j–m) Photos © UCL, Institute of Archaeology; (d, h, n) courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; i courtesy of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania).

Nubian Levallois technology associated with southernmost Neanderthals🏺🧪
J Blinkhorn @clement-zanolli.bsky.social @huwgroucutt.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @chrisbstringer.bsky.social @mdpetraglia.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Btw ~ 70 and 50 kya they expanded into Levant

#FieldworkFriday. Biscuits with the coffee today.

Fieldwork essentials

Cave dig expands to learn more about hunter-gatherers Humans inhabited Malta 1,000 years earlier than previously thought

Nice coverage of our ongoing research timesofmalta.com/article/cave...

Lovely Maltese olive oil

Summer is gradually running out of energy

Fieldwork Friday is actually Office Friday this week, but it has been a busy week of fieldwork otherwise!

Sandbags are useful!

Neanderthals, hypercarnivores, and maggots: Insights from stable nitrogen isotopes Putrefying animal foods laced with maggots should be considered when using isotopes to reconstruct Late Pleistocene hominin diets.

Our Neanderthal cousins have been intensively studied. But every year we learn more and more about them. A couple of recent papers highlight the kinds of hypotheses that are being tested by ongoing research. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... and open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/5-205

#FieldworkFriday. Stone walls near the sea 👌

Lovely little fields in northern Malta near Latnija

That time of year again, fieldwork begins!

#FossilFriday. Cool new animal fossils dating to about 60 thousand years ago from Għar il-Fkieren, Malta. Congratulations Rochelle Xerri, Eleanor Scerri and co-authors. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Nothing else is really flowering at this time, as it's very hot and has barely rained for months. So when loads of this stuff appears, it is very striking (and happy times for the bees).

All kinds of cool ecological and historical aspects to it (e.g. Pythagoras was very into it, and used to hang some by the door to keep away evil spirits!).

Yay, one of my favourite flowers is coming out. Sea Squills (Drimia maritima) emerge from a bulb. Often growing on what looks like very unpromising ground for a large plant, they suddenly appear around the time of the first rains in the Mediterranean.