Research Assistant in Archaeological Data Collection

The GPR ‘Human Past’: our group and our research / Le GPR “Human Past”: notre groupe et notre recherche

The GPR (Grand Programme de Recherche) ‘Human Past’ is an interdisciplinary research project supported by the University of Bordeaux's Initiative d’Excellence. ‘Human Past’ gathers ~110 researchers from 3 laboratories (PACEA, AUSONIUS, and Archéosciences Bordeaux) affiliated with the University of Bordeaux (UB) and the University of Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM). Our expertise combines Biological Anthropology, Classical and Medieval Archaeology, Prehistory, Protohistory, History, Epigraphy, Archaeometry, Geochronology and Computer Science Applications to Cultural Heritage.

’Human Past’ aims to document, characterize and understand the tipping points that have induced major biological and cultural changes within past human populations. Spanning a large chronological period (from Prehistory to historical times), our research aims to identify the steps that enabled a primate originally adapted to African ecosystems to evolve into a species that occupies and impacts every ecosystem on the planet. Biological and social systems will be scrutinized at different scales from a multitude of perspectives with particular attention paid to phenotypic and genetic variability, cognition, technology, social organization, belief systems, and genetic and cultural adaptive strategies that drive human societies.

This position advertisement belongs to the first part of the funding scheme, planned for 4 years.

Project description / Description du projet

This 12-month research assistant position is offered in the framework of a research action focused on examining the archaeological record and the settlement of present-day France during Greenland Stadial 3, one of the coldest phases of the Last Glacial Maximum, as well the Interstadial that followed it (GI-2). The position will be in charge of collected data for archaeological sites belonging to the Recent and Final Gravettian, Protosolutrean, and Solutrean technocomplexes, which are associated with the above climatic periods. These data will be integrated into an existing database. The work will target data from not only present-day France but also those from neighboring regions (northern Iberian Peninsula, northern Italy, and Western Germany). Archaeological sites will be precisely georeferenced and exploited within a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform. The research assistant will also be expected to regularly interact with the project leaders (P. Bertran and W. Banks), as well as to participate in the writing and submission of the final article(s).

Adequacy of the project with the objectives of the GPR/ Adéquation du projet avec les objectifs du GPR

Our research project aims to: a) examine archaeological distributional data in conjunction with paleoenvironmental and geological data for a specific portion of the Recent Paleolithic, b) evaluate correlation between these data, and c) investigate settlement and culture-environment relationships during a period marked by pronounced climatic fluctuations. This research is in line with the objectives of the GPR Human Past, which aims to detect and understand cultural tipping points through time.