Research Interests

My research is concerned with documenting and understanding the changes in human behavior and biology that were associated with the peopling of the Old World during the past half million years.  This research has a focus particularly on the relatively abundant remains of late archaic humans (Neandertals) in western Eurasia and early modern humans across Eurasia.  It also includes investigations of earlier, Middle Pleistocene human remains in the broader context of the evolution of the genus Homo.  Recently, as a result of the discovery of relevant human fossils, I have also been involved the phylogenetic debate on the emergence of modern humans, with issues of ancestry being considered for what they tell us about the behavior of the people involved.

These investigations have employed, personally and through collaboration, as many approaches to the human remains as can be productively, and (usually) non-destructively, employed.  They include functional morphology and biomechanics, paleopathology, growth and development, dental proportions and wear, stable isotope dietary analysis, geochronology, and burial taphonomy.  Active collaboration involves Paleolithic archeologists, functional anatomists, bioarcheologists, and paleopathologists.

Current Projects

Most of my current projects revolve around the description and analysis of fossil human samples, but all are undertaken from the perspective of elucidating broader trends in Pleistocene human paleobiology and behavior.

1) The analysis and description of the Peştera cu Oase (Romania) and its paleontological (especially human and cave bear) remains, with João Zilhão, Silviu Constantin, Hélène Rougier, and others.  Monograph for Oxford University Press in preparation.

2) The detailed human paleontological description and analysis of the earliest modern humans in Europe, those from the Peştera cu Oase (Romania), with Hélène Rougier and others.

3) The morphological and paleopathological assessment of the earliest modern human partial skeleton from eastern Asia, the Tianyuandong (China) skeleton, with Shang Hong.  Monograph on the skeleton in press with Texas A&M University Press (2010 publication).

4) The paleontological, archeological and taphonomic analysis of the Peştera Muierii (Romania) and its early modern human fossils, with Andrei Soficaru and Adrian Doboş.  Monograph in preparation for the Études et Recherches Archéologiques de l’Université de Liège.

5) The comparative morphological and functional analysis of the southern Neandertals from the Sima de las Palomas (Spain), including the only associated Neandertal skeletons from Mediterranean Europe, with Michael Walker, Josefina Zapata, Vincent Lombardi, and others.

6) Ongoing analyses of Pleistocene human and cave bear stable isotope signatures as reflecting habitual diet, with Michael Richards.

7) The paleopathological, taphonomic, developmental and functional analysis of the Upper Paleolithic human burials from Sunghir (Russia), with Alexandra Buzhilova, Maria Mednikova and Maria Kozlovskaya.