Out of Africa – Late Pleistocene Rock Shelter Stratigraphies and Palaeoenvironments in Northeastern Africa

Workshop on Geometric Morphometrics for Archaeologists

On the 12th and 13th of October 2019 Dr Christian Hoggard (Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton) gave an introduction into “Geometric Morphometrics for Archaeologists”.

Geometric Morphometrics (GMM) focuses on the analysis of shape with Cartesian landmarks and helps to assess if assemblages differ in this regard.
In archaeology it is than possible to answer predefined questions, e.g. the outline of an artefact or if the type of raw material influences the shape of a handaxe.
Following the definition of landmarks, other important steps in shape analysis are superimposition, representation of differences and testing of hypotheses.
Very interesting was the presentation of advanced analytical techniques: maximum likelihood phylogenies, unsupervised self-organising maps (Artificial Neural Networks) and multiple factor analysis.
The workshop focused on GMM within the R environment that makes the analysis transparent and reproducible.

The two days were very helpful, and we thank Dr Christian Hoggard for this comprehensive overview.

 

 

Text: Christian Schepers

Christian Schepers is PhD candidate in the A1-project. He is currently working on the lithic technology of Mochena Borago and Sodmein Cave in the context of human dispersal.

 

Blogeintrag ElenaHensel EGU2019 lhk 350pxImpression of the workshop "Geometric Morphotmetrics for Archaeologists."
Photo: F. Sauer

Project

 

Geo-archaeological research at Sodmein Cave revisi...

Geo-archaeological research at Sodmein Cave revisited

Sodmein Cave in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, with its more than 4 m of stratified human occupation debris, was revisited in autumn 2010...

Excavation at Moche Borago rock shelter continues

Excavation at Moche Borago rock shelter continues

A combined team of archaeologists and other specialists from the University of Cologne, the University of Florida, the Ethiopian A...

Refitting and technological analysis

Refitting and technological analysis

Although the refitting of stone artefacts is a rather time consuming aspect of archaeological research it provides some very impor...

A more than 53,000 year old archaeological assembl...

A more than 53,000 year old archaeological assemblage at Mochena Borago Rockshelter, SW Ethiopia

Excavations at Mochena Borago Rockshelter continued during February/March 2012. Previous work had shown this site to contain deep...

Reconstructing palaeoenvironments

Reconstructing palaeoenvironments

In order to identify older wadi terraces and tectonic displacements in the surroundings of Sodmein Cave/Egypt, several DGPS measur...

When humans conquered high mountains

When humans conquered high mountains

Generally speaking, the colonization of high-altitude regions is considered a relatively recent development, not least as alpine h...

Geo-archaeological research on the Late Pleistocen...

Geo-archaeological research on the Late Pleistocene of the Egyptian Eastern Desert: recent threats to the Sodmein Cave

The amount of stratigraphic and secure dating evidence from Late Pleistocene archaeological sites of north-eastern Africa is limit...

Micromorphology at Sodmein Cave – looking at the l...

Micromorphology at Sodmein Cave – looking at the lowest level of site formation processes

First micromorphological investigations at Sodmein Cave were started and four pilot thin sections from the sequence are in process...

Geomorphological investigations at Mochena Borago...

Geomorphological investigations at Mochena Borago rock shelter, Ethiopia

During the last decade archaeological analyses helped to gain insight into the history of settlement of the rock shelter in the la...

A view off from Mochena Borago: Investigation of Q...

A view off from Mochena Borago: Investigation of Quaternary environmental archives in southwestern Ethiopian Highlands

Mochena Borago's depositional history has to be linked with regional environmental archives to figure out the local and regional c...

On the trail of Late Pleistocene surfaces (Eastern...

On the trail of Late Pleistocene surfaces (Eastern Desert, Egypt)

Several concentrations of Late Pleistocene stone artefacts were documented during archaeological surveys in 2014 in the vicinity o...

Dr. Mohamed Youssef – A guest researcher from Egyp...

Dr. Mohamed Youssef – A guest researcher from Egypt helps in deciphering palaeohydrology

As part of the ongoing research in the Egyptian Eastern Desert, Project A1 has welcomed Dr. Mohamed Youssef for a two-month guest...

International Science Meeting “Inside – Outside” i...

International Science Meeting “Inside – Outside” in Cologne

The scientific challenge of integrating cave and open-air archives was the subject of the International Science Meeting “Inside –...

Interlinking the cultural with the natural environ...

Interlinking the cultural with the natural environment – an example from the Djebel Duwi area (Eastern Desert, Egypt)

Developments in landscape studies in the past decades have allowed scholars to successfully bridge the cultural and natural scienc...

What Pasts for Africa? CRC members at the 2016 SAf...

What Pasts for Africa? CRC members at the 2016 SAfA meeting in Toulouse

From 26th of June to 2nd of July of 2016, several members of the CRC 806 attended the 23rd Biennial meeting of the Society of Afri...

Excavation at the Sodicho Rockshelter (Southwest E...

Excavation at the Sodicho Rockshelter (Southwest Ethiopia)

Sodicho Rockshelter, a Holocene and late Pleistocene site in the southwestern Ethiopian Highlands, was visited in October/November...

Presenting our science to the public: CRC 806 at t...

Presenting our science to the public: CRC 806 at the research day of the Neanderthal Museum

During this year’s „Day of Research“ (November 19th, 2017) in the Neanderthal Museum at Mettmann, scientists of the A- and C-Clust...

Playas, palaeosoils and speleothems: Dating Pleist...

Playas, palaeosoils and speleothems: Dating Pleistocene archives with geo-archaeological methods

At the end of last year – November/December 2017 – a geo-archaeological field campaign was carried out in the surroundings of Sodm...

Collaborative fieldwork around Wadi Sodmein, Egypt...

Collaborative fieldwork around Wadi Sodmein, Egypt: geomorphology, sedimentology, and geochronology in the Eastern Desert

Members of the A1 and F2 projects have carried out a field campaign (March, 2018) in the proximity of Wadi Sodmein in the Eastern...

CRC 806 at the AFQUA-Conference 2018, Nairobi

CRC 806 at the AFQUA-Conference 2018, Nairobi

The 2nd AFQUA-Conference was held in Nairobi (Kenya), bringing together Quaternary Scientists working in Africa on a wide range of...

Geoarchaeological fieldwork in the Highlands - Sod...

Geoarchaeological fieldwork in the Highlands - Sodicho Rockshelter

The interdisciplinary research team of archaeologists and geoarchaeologists from the A1 project have successfully continued their...

Dendi Lake Rock Shelter – Holocene Hunter-Gatherer...

Dendi Lake Rock Shelter – Holocene Hunter-Gatherers in the Afromontane Forest

In 2011 the CRC 806 – Our Way to Europe (A3 and A1) started to investigate Mount Dendi (3270 m a.s.l.) in Ethiopia. The 2012 excav...

First insights into Ethiopian paleoenvironment: Po...

First insights into Ethiopian paleoenvironment: Poster presentation of the project A1 at the EGU General Assembly 2019

Since 2005, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) has held their annual General Assembly at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV). Once a...

Brand new results from Southwest Ethiopian Highlan...

Brand new results from Southwest Ethiopian Highlands

A new research entitled “Combining geomorphological-hydrological analyses and the location of settlement and raw material sites –...

Workshop on Geometric Morphometrics for Archaeolog...

Workshop on Geometric Morphometrics for Archaeologists

On the 12th and 13th of October 2019 Dr Christian Hoggard (Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton) gave an introduct...

Archaeology and Colonialism. A comment.

In the past Europeans travelled to the colonies in Africa and extracted resources. Among the resources were artefacts that were pa...

logo qsga small new

logo koeln schrift 120x120 transparent

     logo uni bonn 153x40      dfg logo transparent
 

RWTH Aachen University

  logo geoverbund small 2 

logo koeln schrift 120x120 transparent

  logo Twitter
Copyright © 2021 CRC 806 - Our Way to Europe