Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment

Archaeo- and Paleogenetics

The research focus of our group entails the genetic analysis of ancient human, pathogen, and animal diversity. We apply cutting-edge computational pipelines and molecular biology methodologies to extract genomic information from ancient specimens to aid the understanding of human history and evolution over tens of millennia.

Our interests span from reconstructing the demographic history of Neanderthal populations to tracking human dispersals during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene across Eurasia. Moreover, our team investigates the genetic history of early inhabitants of the Asia-Pacific region and the peopling of the Americas. In more recent periods, our group is engaged in reconstructing the mobility, admixture, and living conditions of historical populations though the genomic analysis of humans and their associated pathogens. Our research expands beyond human fossils by investigating multiple ancient DNA sources including ancient animal remains.

Similar topics and Collections

H. Jensen

Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.