• Earliest human burial in Africa 

      Martinon-Torres, Maria; d'Errico, Francesco; Santos, Elena; Alvaro Gallo, Ana; Amano, Noel; Archer, William; Armitage, Simon James; Arsuaga, Juan luis; Bermudez de Castro, Jose María; Blinkhorn, James; Crowther, Alison; Douka, Katerina; Dubernet, Stéphan; Faulkner, Patrick; Fernández-Colón, Pilar; Kourampas, Nikos; González García, Jorge; Larreina, David; Le Bourdonnec, François-Xavier; MacLeod, George; Martín-Francés, Laura; Massilani, Diyendo; Mercader, Julio; Miller, Jennifer M.; Ndiema, Emmanuel; Notario, Belén; Marti, Africa Pitarch; Prendergast, Mary E.; Queffelec, Alain; Rigaud, Solange; Roberts, Patrick; Shoaee, Mohammad Javad; Shipton, Ceri; Simpson, Ian; Boivin, Nicole; Petraglia, Michael D. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      The origin and evolution of hominin mortuary practices are topics of intense interest and debate1,2,3. Human burials dated to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) are exceedingly rare in Africa and unknown in East Africa1,2,3,4,5,6. ...
    • Environmental influences on human innovation and behavioural diversity in southern Africa 92–80 thousand years ago 

      Mackay, Alex; Armitage, Simon James; Niespolo, Elizabeth M.; Sharp, Warren D.; Stahlschmidt, Mareike C.; Blackwood, Alexander F.; Boyd, Kelsey C.; Chase, Brian; Lagle, Susan E.; Kaplan, Chester F.; Low, Marika A.; Martisius, Naomi L.; McNeill, Patricia J.; Moffat, Ian; O’Driscoll, Corey A.; Rudd, Rachel; Orton, Jayson; Steele, Teresa E. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Africa’s Middle Stone Age preserves sporadic evidence for novel behaviours among early modern humans, prompting a range of questions about the influence of social and environmental factors on patterns of human behavioural ...
    • The expansion of Acheulean hominins into the Nefud Desert of Arabia 

      Scerri, Eleanor M. L.; Frouin, Marine; Breeze, Paul S.; Armitage, Simon James; Candy, Ian; Groucutt, Huw S.; Drake, Nick; Parton, Ash; White, Tom S.; Alsharekh, Abdullah; Petraglia, Michael D. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      The Arabian Peninsula is a critical geographic landmass situated between Africa and the rest of Eurasia. Climatic shifts across the Pleistocene periodically produced wetter conditions in Arabia, dramatically altering the ...
    • Human footprints provide snapshot of last interglacial ecology in the Arabian interior 

      Stewart, Mathew; Clark-Wilson, Richard; Breeze, Paul S; Janulis, Klint; Candy, Ian; Armitage, Simon James; Ryves, David B.; Louys, Julien; Duval, Mathieu; Price, Gilbert J; Cuthbertson, Patrick; Bernal, Marco A.; Drake, Nick A; Alsharekh, Abdullah; Zahrani, Badr; Al-Omari, Abdulaziz; Roberts, Patrick; Groucutt, Huw S.; Petraglia, Michael D. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      The nature of human dispersals out of Africa has remained elusive because of the poor resolution of paleoecological data in direct association with remains of the earliest non-African people. Here, we report hominin and ...
    • The Middle Stone Age in the Eastern Desert. EDAR 135 — a buried early MIS 5 horizon from Sudan 

      Ehlert, Maciej; Kim, Ju Yong; Sohn, Young Kwan; Cendrowska, Marzena; Krupa-Kurzynowska, Joanna; Andrieux, Eric; Armitage, Simon James; Michalec, Grzegorz; Dreczko, Ewa; Alkhidir, Hassan Mustafa; Szmit, Marcin; Masojć, Mirosław (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic artefacts coming from dated layers preserved in their original stratigraphic position are still rare in Northeast Africa in general and in Sudan in particular. This paper aims to present the ...
    • Multiple hominin dispersals into Southwest Asia over the past 400,000 years 

      Groucutt, Huw S.; White, Tom S.; Scerri, Eleanor M. L.; Andrieux, Eric; Clark-Wilson, Richard; Breeze, Paul S.; Armitage, Simon James; Stewart, Mathew; Drake, Nick; Louys, Julien; Price, Gilbert J.; Duval, Mathieu; Parton, Ash; Candy, Ian; Carleton, W. Christopher; Shipton, Ceri; Jennings, Richard P.; Zahir, Muhammad; Blinkhorn, James; Blockley, Simon; Al-Omari, Abdulaziz; Alsharekh, Abdullah M.; Petraglia, Michael D. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Pleistocene hominin dispersals out of, and back into, Africa necessarily involved traversing the diverse and often challenging environments of Southwest Asia1,2,3,4. Archaeological and palaeontological records from the ...
    • The oldest Homo erectus buried lithic horizon from the Eastern Saharan Africa. EDAR 7 - an Acheulean assemblage with Kombewa method from the Eastern Desert, Sudan 

      Masojć, Mirosław; Kim, Ju Yong; Krupa-Kurzynowska, Joanna; Sohn, Young Kwan; Ehlert, Maciej; Michalec, Grzegorz; Cendrowska, Marzena; Andrieux, Eric; Armitage, Simon James; Szmit, Marcin; Dreczko, Ewa; Kim, Jin Cheul; Kim, Ji Sung; Lee, Gwang-Soo; Moska, Piotr; Jadain, Modather Abdalla (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Although essential for reconstructing hominin behaviour during the Early Palaeolithic, only a handful of Acheulean sites have been dated in the Eastern Sahara region. This is due to the scarcity of sites for this time ...
    • Optically stimulated luminescence dating of heat retainer hearths from the Sahara: Insights into signal accumulation and measurement 

      Armitage, Simon James; Krishna, A; Parker, Luke E; King, Georgina E (Peer reviewed; Journal article, 2019)
      Heat retainer hearths are a prominent component of the Holocene archaeological record of a number of drylands. Rocks within these hearths were fired in antiquity, emptying the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) source ...
    • Palaeoenvironmental and sea level changes during the Holocene in Eastern Saudi Arabia and their implications for Neolithic populations 

      Parker, Adrian; Morley, Mike W.; Armitage, Simon James; Engel, Max; Parton, Ash; Preston, Gareth W.; Russ, Hannah; Drechsler, Philipp (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      This paper presents the key findings of a multidisciplinary study investigating the nature and timing of coastal landscape evolution in eastern Saudi Arabia during the Holocene. To date, most sea level reconstructions for ...
    • Sedimentary and geomorphic evidence of Saharan megalakes: A synthesis 

      Drake, N.A.; Candy, I.; Breeze, P.; Armitage, Simon James; Gasmi, N.; Schwenninger, J.L.; Peat, D.; Manning, K. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      It has long been recognised that the Sahara Desert contains sediment, landform and palaeoecological evidence for phases of increased humidity during the Quaternary period. Many authors have also suggested that during some ...
    • Taphonomy of an excavated striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) den in Arabia: implications for paleoecology and prehistory 

      Stewart, Mathew; Andrieux, Eric; Clark-Wilson, Richard; Vanwezer, Nils; Blinkhorn, James; Armitage, Simon James; Al-Omari, Abdulaziz; Zahrani, Badr; Alqahtani, Mesfer; Al-Shanti, Mahmoud; Zalmout, Iyad; Al-Mufarreh, Yahya S. A.; Alsharekh, Abdullah; Boivin, Nicole; Petraglia, Michael D.; Groucutt, Huw S. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Studies of modern carnivore accumulations of bone (i.e., neo-taphonomy) are crucial for interpreting fossil accumulations in the archaeological and paleontological records. Yet, studies in arid regions have been limited ...
    • A Window into the Early–Middle Stone Age Transition in Northeastern Africa—A Marine Isotope Stage 7a/6 Late Acheulean Horizon from the EDAR 135 Site, Eastern Sahara (Sudan) 

      Michalec, Grzegorz; Cendrowska, Marzena; Andrieux, Eric; Armitage, Simon James; Ehlert, Maciej; Kim, Ju Yong; Sohn, Young Kwan; Krupa-Kurzynowska, Joanna; Moska, Piotr; Szmit, Marcin; Masojć, Mirosław (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      This paper presents the results of the analysis of a late Acheulean horizon from the EDAR 135 site, which was discovered in the Eastern Desert, Sudan, in an area heavily transformed by modern mining activity. A lithic ...