During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene of southwest Asia our species shifted from hunting and gathering to farming.

Environmental conditions may have had a role in this fundamental change in human subsistence strategies but models of climatic fluctuations experienced during this period overlook the importance of shorter-term shifts and localised patterns as they are extremely difficult to detect in the archaeological record. The project will use new scientific tools to identify past patterns of bird migration, since these species are highly responsive to environmental patterns, as evidence to model past environments and examine human adaptive responses to climate change.

The UniTo team is developing new approaches for the identification of avifaunal remains based on protein markers (palaeoproteomics) and integrating these with other lines of evidence from sites in Jordan.

Funded by

Independent research Fund Denmark.

Principal Investigator
  • Prof. Lisa Yeomans, University of Copenhagen
Co-Investigators & collaborators

Dr Maria Codlin (University of Turin), Prof. Beatrice Demarchi (University of Turin), Dr Camilla Mazzucato (University of Copenhagen), Dr Ashleigh Haruda (University of Copenhagen & Oxford).