Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment

Tübingen, Schöningen

As of October 2009, the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment (SHEP) was built and established at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. In May of 2017, SHEP became an institute of the Leibniz Association.

SHEP is comprised of the following seven working groups in the Division of Geosciences:

Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology (Prof. Nicholas Conard Ph.D.)
Archaeo- and Paleogenetics (Juniorprof. Dr. Cosimo Posth)
Biogeology (Prof. Dr. Hervé Bocherens)
Geoarchaeology (Prof. Dr. Christopher Miller)
Micropaleontology (Dr. Annett Junginger)
Paleoanthropology (Prof. Dr. Katerina Harvati)
Paleontology (Prof. Dr. Madelaine Böhme)

The Director of the Institute is Prof. Dr. Katerina Harvati.

The scientific coordination of the institute is conducted by Dr. Sibylle Wolf.

The Division of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology is located in the castle. Its subgroups Zooarchaeology and Archaeobotany, both are located on Rümelinstraße. Paleoanthropology and Geoarchaeology as well as the long-term project “The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans” of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences are also found there. The other groups work in the future SHEP building on Hölderlinstraße/Sigwartstraße.

The close scientific relationship with other areas of the Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research (SGN) is reflected in the cooperation with, for example, the Paleoanthropology section in Frankfurt and the Research Station for Quaternary Paleontology in Weimar. SHEP-Tübingen deals with various aspects of the biological and cultural evolution of humans and apes, as well as with climate and environmental development throughout the Cenozoic. The cooperation between Senckenberg and the University of Tübingen also concerns teaching, as well as the curation of the extensive paleozoological, paleobotanical, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and geoarchaeological collections at the University of Tübingen by Senckenberg. These internationally renowned collections are a unique feature of SHEP.

The biological and cultural evolution of humans in their environment is a central issue for humanity. SHEP’s research is based on the assumption that biological and early cultural evolution of humans and their ancestors has been significantly influenced by changes in the paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. Cultural evolution gradually played an increasing roll starting about 2.5 million years ago. Methods such as genetics, isotope geochemistry, geological and geochronological techniques, climate and environmental reconstructions, and the analysis of archaeological artifacts are used to study the interactions between human biology, culture, and the environment.

SHEP’s publication output is internationally leading. Currently outstanding are the ERC Advanced Grant FIRSTSTEPS and the DFG Research Training GroupWords, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past, which are based in the Palaeoanthropology working group. The work of SHEP pursues a scientifically and socially relevant research topic that is internationally unique in its approach and coherence and enjoys great social attention.

Current

SHEP has a joint lab ‘3D imaging’ of the University of Tübingen and Senckenberg, which operates a DFG-funded µCT. In addition to research tasks, the focus here is on digitising the extensive collections. The Leibniz ScienceCampus Geogenomic Archaeology Campus Tübingen was established in 2023. Further information can be found under the following link: geogenarch-tuebingen.de

Similar topics and Collections

Adrian Giacomelli

Institute

SHEP is comprised of the following seven working groups in the Division for Geosciences at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.

J. Lipták

Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology

The collection of the Division for Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen represents one of the largest stone age collections in Germany. It contains more than 1.000 000 artifacts, including stone tools, faunal remains, tools made from osseous materials and pottery from important archaeological sites in Europe but also in Africa.

Simone Riehl Uni Tübingen

Archaeobotany

The archaeobotanical collection at the Institute for the Archeology of natural sciences at the University of Tübingen was founded in the 1970s by Dr. Helmut Schlichtherle.

SHEP Zooarchaeology collection at the University of Tubingen

Zooarchaeology

The Zooarchaeology collection is part of the Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology working group led by Prof. Nicholas Conard. It is curated by PD Dr. Britt Starkovich.

SHEP Tübingen APG Labor

Archaeo- and Paleogenetics

The major focus of the research group is genetic analysis of fossil DNA from human remains. We apply novel techniques of high throughput DNA sequencing and targeted DNA enrichment to obtain insights into the history and evolution of extinct human populations.

C. Jäckle, Universität Tübingen

Biogeology

Our working group understands Biogeology in the sense of investigating biological questions in the framework of geological times. The focus is on biological processes and how organisms lived in the past, within the context of a long time-scale perspective.

Chris Miller

Geoarchaeology

The Geoarchaeology Collection is the largest of its kind worldwide, with more than 15,000 objects. It consists of sediment peels, loose sediment samples, resin-indurated sediment blocks and thin sections, as well as original field documentation and photographs.

Valentin Marquardt

Paleontology

The six palaeontological collections of the University of Tübingen were established as a research and teaching collection in the early 18th century.

A. Karakostis

Paleoanthropology

Research conducted by the Paleoanthropology group aims to elucidate the bio-cultural processes that shaped human evolution, leaving their traces on hominin phenotypic variation.