Actualités du GMPCA et de l'archéométrie

This position is to assist in sample organization and processing for an archaeobotanical study of prehistoric specimens from Thailand, housed at the Penn Museum. Tasks include data management of archaeobotanical soils collections, organizing specimens and moving sediment collections so that they can be further processed, adding data for samples not yet registered, and from about July 27-August 7, the assistant will work with a visiting archaeobotanist to float, sieve, and otherwise process the soil samples in preparation for further study by the senior archaeobotanist at another institution. Summer hours can be flexible except during the visit by the archaeobotanist.

Plus d’informations :
[Website University of Pennsylvania]

Recent advances in remote sensing technology, such as airborne LiDAR scanning, have greatly facilitated the surveying and identification of archaeological sites. This technology has made it possible to detect traces of ancient societies in heavily forested areas that would have otherwise remained invisible to satellite imagery. LiDAR instruments mounted underneath an aerial platform emit approximately a million pulses per second, which can penetrate through the foliage and generate extensive 3D point clouds of the forest floor. These point clouds can be processed to remove the foliage cover and provide a precise and detailed map of the underlying terrain. Archaeologists can then use this information to analyze and categorize anthropogenic structures and plan potential explorations on site.

Plus d’informations :
[Website École Française d’Extrême-Orient]

Arguably the most powerful social tool in the animal kingdom, language may have evolved as an adaptation to a new demand: the coordination of joint action. Coordinated joint action requires highly flexible adjustments in communicative behaviour regarding social context, interaction partner and ecological settings. Are the evolutionary roots of this plasticity to be found in our closest living relatives, the great apes? This hypothesis remains to be tested, because most comparative work focuses on population- or species-level variation rather than variation on the individual level. To tease apart variation on an individual, group and species level, we will gather comparative observational and experimental datasets on the coordination of joint activities in great apes and humans. The successful applicant will study social interactions among orang-utans in wild (Suaq, North Sumatra, Indonesia) and captive (various zoos in Europe) research settings.

Plus d’informations :
[Website Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen]

Khalifa University is seeking a highly motivated Post-doctoral Fellow to work on a funded project to investigate archeological sites in the UAE using geophysical techniques such as GPR, ERT, MASW, gravity and magnetic. The project will design, acquire, process and interpret geophysical survey data that can be used to detect buried archaeological objectives in the UAE. The outcomes of the field surveys will serve to validate the results obtained from satellite imagery. As part of the project, the researcher will have access to state-of-the-art research equipment and facilities at the Earth Sciences department and will get an opportunity to work alongside researchers and graduate students from various backgrounds as part of a wider team.

Plus d’informations :
[Website Khalifa University]

Create a physical model that connects the optical properties of the pigments used in cave paintings, and measured in-situ, to their physical and chemical properties: chemical composition of the minerals and binders, granulometry, texture. That model will be based on a physical model of radiative transfer inside the pigment layer. The pigments used in cave paintings are usually dry powders. We do not currently have a physical model for the reflectance of dry powders, as opposed to suspensions or compact materials. Experiments show that pigments can have different colors with the same chemical and mineral composition, implying that scattering effects are playing a role in the color. We have very few reference materials with well known physical properties and measured spectral response as well as bidirectional reflectance function, for dry powders. We do not have accurate optical constants for the materials (minerals, binders) used in the pigments, and measuring them is challenging. Painting materials are applied on a rock wall. This substrate contributes to the overall reflectance and appearance in some spectral ranges. We will have to remove its contribution.

Plus d’informations :
[Website ABG]

In the AD 270s and 280s, huge numbers of imitations of copper-alloy radiate coins, usually referred to as “barbarous radiates”, were struck in Britain. While they are almost ubiquitous finds on excavations throughout the province, they have not been the focus of much research. This project therefore aims to redress the balance. Through new chemical (portable-XRF and MP-AES) and archaeological analysis, this work will place these radiates in a wider setting and unlock their potential for understanding the late Roman technological, social and economic world. It will explore the production and use of these imitations and their social importance. What does copying, irregularity, or imitation mean at this time, and how do these coins relate to contemporary metallurgical practice?

Plus d’informations :
[Website University of Reading]

Dr. Leslea Hlusko is the Lead Researcher of the project Tied2Teeth: “Expanding our understanding of human evolution through pleiotropy” whose objective is to study the influence of the genes acting on dental variation upon aspects of human anatomy, and to apply this to the fossil record of the Iberian Peninsula and eastern Africa. The purpose of this contract is to train a doctor candidate within the framework of this project, who will develop a line of research focused on the evolution of genetic influences on dental variation in primates (human and non-human).

Plus d’informations :
[Website CENIEH]

Les caractérisations géométrique et sémantique de pièces numérisées restent fastidieuses pour l'archéologue, que ce soit pour la caractérisation ou l'indexation. Ce processus est complexe à implémenter numériquement pour un objet archéologique dont les informations géométriques sont très parcellaires (usure, fracture, fragmentation) et dont les méthodes de fabrication ne sont pas connues a priori. Dans le cadre de ce projet, nous proposons de baser le processus de caractérisation des surfaces maillées sur l'extraction de propriétés locales et de manipuler ces dernières de manière plus abstraite via des graphes. Un travail préliminaire est en cours dans le projet avec un post-doctorant dans le domaine des graphes de Reeb. Lors de la phase d’appariement, les données multi-modales pourront être intégrées : géométries, photographies ou texture, sémantique.

Plus d’informations :
[Website LIB]

The Department of Zoology invites applications for a 3-year postdoc position within the division of Population Genetics, based at the Centre for Palaeogenetics (CPG) in Stockholm. The position is funded through the ERC Advanced Grant PrimiGenomes awarded to Love Dalén. The postdoctoral project advertised here is aimed at developing novel computational tools to bioinformatically recover and analyze highly degraded DNA sequences from specimens that are up to 2.5 million years old. The goals include development of improved methods for accurate alignment and authentication of extremely short DNA fragments, exploring variation graph alignment and variant calling approaches for several different Pleistocene taxa, and benchmarking the performance of the developed tools using comparisons of simulated and empirical data.

Plus d’informations :
[Website Stockholm University]

The post doc will work on the ERC - funded project FELIX to conduct paleogenomic analyses on cats froma Asia. The goal to generate and analyze genome- wide data from historic and prehistoric speciments to reconstruct the dispersal of domestic cats with humans, admixture events between wild and domestic cat populations and selective precesses in the past.

Plus d’informations :
[Website Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata]

Under the ERC Starting Grant project DOPAMICS, we offer a research opportunity to study the diversity of biomechanical properties of Amazonian palm fibers within and between species in forest landscapes of French Guiana. The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and one of the most diverse terrestrial ecosystems. However, despite uncertainties about the future of its biodiversity, the state of Amazonian biodiversity and the underlying ecological processes remain largely under-documented to date. Palms (Arecaceae) are one of the most abundant families in Amazonian forest inventories and are also an essential resource for human societies since pre-Columbian times. Palms provide major food resources due to the nutritional properties of their fruits, as well as construction and basketry materials due to the excellent properties of their fibers. Some palm species are also considered biological indicators of ancient occupation by archaeologists and ecologists. The challenges regarding the preservation and sustainable use of natural resources is also gaining interest as modern societies seek nature-based solutions, such as the conception of innovative eco-materials. Therefore, studying palm diversity can offer new insights onto the history of Amazonian biodiversity as well as proposing new strategies to meet contemporary socio-economic needs. The DOPAMICS project aims to understand how pre-Columbian societies have shaped the diversity of Amazonian palms through subsistence agriculture and domestication. DOPAMICS focuses on emblematic but little-known archaeological sites in French Guiana: the "ring ditches". It builds upon an interdisciplinary methodology at the interface between life sciences, humanities and data sciences to assess the impact of pre-Columbian societies on the diversity and evolution of five palm species of major importance. Work Package 2 (WP2) specifically focuses on the "useful" functional diversity related to the metabolic properties of fruits and the biomechanical properties of leaf fibers.

Plus d’informations :
[Website DOPAMICS project]

Applications are invited for a Research Scientist position as part of the two-year project “CROPREVIVE: mapping underutilised crops in Ireland – past, present and future”. There has been a significant reduction in crop diversity globally, which has serious implications for food security. By merging data from archaeology and plant sciences, CROPREVIVE will investigate the deep history of crop diversity in Ireland and seek resilient modern varieties of crops for future sustainable production. This is an exciting opportunity to work as part of an international, interdisciplinary team tackling a global societal challenge (PI: Assoc. Prof. Meriel McClatchie; Co-PI: Dr Sónia Negrão ). The Research Scientist will merge datasets from Archaeology and Agronomy, undertake data analyses (including statistical analyses) and contribute to a report on findings. The Research Scientist will also engage in stakeholder consultation and outreach activities. Training will be provided in outreach activities, including mapping of data.

Plus d’informations :
[Website University College Dublin]