Posdoctoral Researcher - R2 -

Dr. Michael Toffolo is the Principal Investigator (henceforth, "IP") of the project PEOPLE (PalaeoEcology and OPen-LandscapE adaptations of Pleistocene humans in South Africa),whose objective is to determine whether freshwater availability exerted key selective pressure on the evolution, ecology, and dispersal of anatomically modern humans in the semi-arid interior of South Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, and ultimately to understand how and when humans settled in the central interior of South Africa.

This project has been selected to receive funding from the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the European Union's Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Program (Grant Agreement No. 101039711). These funds stand at €1,499,856 and the project will be developed for 5 years starting on September 1^st 2022 at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH).

The project PEOPLE will be pursued through an interconnected network of researchers from different fields of geochronology, archaeology, the geosciences, and other related fields, some of whom will work at the CENIEH and be led directly by the IP, while the rest are external collaborators from different European, African, and American research centers.

The Grant Agreement signed with the European Commission (no. 101039711) includes a specific allocation for hiring a full-time, R2 postdoctoral researcher, so that this hire will be 100%-financed by the funds of the Project PEOPLE within the framework of the abovementioned funding program.

The selection process will be carried out through the selection by competitive examination system, with respect to the constitutional principles of equality, merit, capacity and transparency, with the valuations and scores specified in the call, in the corresponding section and annex.

The overall purpose of the contract will be (1) to conduct archaeological survey 4 months per year in the Free State Province of the Republic of South Africa together with the IP and local team members, with the aim of documenting new archaeological and paleontological localities, part of which will be selected for excavation; (2) to collect sediment samples for paleoenvironmental analyses; (3) to study the lithic artifacts recovered during archaeological excavations; (4) to publish fieldwork results in a timely manner.

The duration of this contract is 4 years. The start date is estimated at June 1^st, 2023, which may be extended up to July 1^st, 2023, at the latest. This post requires permanent residency in Spain and it is not compatible with other research projects that include fieldwork unrelated to PEOPLE´s.

This temporary position will report to the IP of the PEOPLE project which will finance the entirety of the salary costs of this contract (gross salary, employer's Social Security contribution, raises and incentives, if applicable, and the appropriate severance pay).

These temporary positions fall within the Research Functional Area, Professional Group II, level B.2, professional category of Postdoctoral Researcher, with a tier 4 complement in conformance with the professional classification and salary tables in force of the First Collective Agreement of the Consorcio CENIEH published in the Boletín de la Provincia de Burgos, No. 8, on January 12^th 2012.

The employment contracts to be formalized shall be for an open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget by virtue of the art. 23 Bis of the Law 14/2011, de 1 de junio, de la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación, full-time, for 38.5 hours per week, so that according to the tables for 2022 this gross annual remuneration stands at approximately €28,500.