Wednesday was a day of celebration for the Museum, which also wrapped up with an evening ceremony to which all friends and supporters were invited, as well as the team of the current excavations at Hohle Fels Cave.

Despite their size, they show species and behavioural characteristics, demonstrating the exceptional skills and deep ecological knowledge of the people living in the region about 40,000 years ago.

The two new finds were presented by Prof Nicholas Conard and Dr Ria Litzenberg, and the new statuettes will be exhibited in the museum until mid-2027. The two bird statuettes are exceptionally crafted, made from mammoth ivory, and they are surprisingly small.

On Wednesday, I had the great honour to be present at the press conference on the occasion of the presentation of two new Ice Age statuettes, which had been discovered during excavations of the Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura Mountains in Germany. uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...

The symposium is supported by the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and is in collaboration with PKKP Aboriginal Corporation. It will involve both IAS Fellows, who the School of Social Sciences currently hosts, Dr Marie Forget and Dr Mélanie Duval, as well as a range of fabulous UWA colleagues. /2

Dear all, I am happy to announce a free one-day IAS symposium on "Extractive industries and the protection and preservation of Indigenous heritage", to be held on 25 June 2026 at the University of Western Australia. 1/

I am very happy to be able to let you all know that the volume "Alterity and Human Evolution: Deep-Time and Multispecies Perspectives on Difference and Variation" has now been officially published by @berghahnbooks.bsky.social! www.berghahnbooks.com/title/Abadia... /1

In the final paper, André Tomás Santos (2026) builds on Philippe Descola’s work and introduces a new perspective in the attempt to assign a cosmological domain to the makers of much of Upper Palaeolithic art in Western Europe. www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea... /5

In the second paper, Gianpiero Di Maida is seeking to overcome the impasse reached in the long-standing debate over Neanderthal cognitive capacities and rather focusing on their being-in-the-world as inferred from the available archaeological record. www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea... /3

In the first paper, Benjamin Alberti investigates the issue of anthropomorphism in ceramic production during the first millennium AD in Northwest Argentina through the lens of alterity. www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea... /2

Our Open Access special issue on "An Ontological Turn for Archaeology?" in the EAZ journal is now complete and can be accessed via the link below! This is a small but precious collection of papers. Hope that you will find it useful and inspiring. www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea... /1

Just published in the EAZ in open access! Please have a look at this great new paper by @shumon.bsky.social on "Zoo-Ontologies: Materiality and Visuality in the Multispecies Tangle". This paper is now free to download via the EAZ website. www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea...

Coming in April 2026! This truly fabulous volume will be published early next year and putting this together was just a great journey. It allowed working together with many amazing scholars from different parts of the world and I profited so much from reading and engaging with all the chapters.

Please have a look at this new open access paper by Benjamin Alberti that was just published in the EAZ. This is part of a special issue on ontological approaches in archaeology with more great papers to follow! #archaeology www.eaz-journal.org/index.php/ea...

It is a great pleasure to announce that our new book on Palaeolithic art and what we can learn from it has just been published by Heidelberg University Publishing! The volume is OA and can be downloaded via the link below! @deeptimeheritage.bsky.social 🤩😎 heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book...

Come work with us!! Job opportunity!! We just advertised a 5-year full-time T/R Archaeology Lecturer position at Level B. This will suit an early career researcher with a teaching and research profile that is relevant to Australia. Full details below! external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/cw/en/job/52...

Coming back from an inspiring WAC-10 in Darwin, it was a very lovely surprise to find my author copies of this amazing volume at home. The book should be in the shops from tomorrow. It is very much worth your time and attention!

In the summary document, the figures all look like this...

CFP! At the upcoming AAA/AIMA conference in Fremantle (2 -5 December), I am co-hosting a session together with Gretchen Stolte and Sven Ouzman with the title "Understanding, Critiquing, and Communicating Time in Archaeology and Beyond". www.aaaconference.com.au/call-for-abs...

CFP! Together with @lauramayer.bsky.social and Rebecca Corps, I am co-hosting a session at this year's AAA/AIMA conference in Fremantle on intersections between heritage, history, and tourism. If you are at the conference this year, consider contributing! www.aaaconference.com.au/call-for-abs...

Coming soon your way in online open access! 😁

Postdoc opportunity at the University of Cologne, Germany, to support the ECOLITHIC project: A Radical Ecosystems View of Lithic Macro-Evolution! ecolithic.uni-koeln.de/opportunities

And so it continues... www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Re. Australia Day, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party continues the tradition of writing Aboriginal people out of history, arguing that the establishment of the British colony in the late 18th century was just the acquisition of a depopulated, natural landscape. Terra nullius all over again...

Just found out that we didn't have this very interesting volume available in our university's library...

In late 2023, there has also been a new publication (in English!) on the Bad Dürrenberg shaman in this Open Access volume that provides some information on the results of the new excavations of the burial! /31 books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de//propylaeum/...

Unfortunately, the performance did not happen as originally planned and was cancelled in 2024. However, the team has declared that they won't give up and I am looking forward to further updates! /29

More information on different aspects (story, team, cast, etc.) of this ambitious project can be found here. /28 www.cantus-mitteldeutschland.de/projekt/die-...

Together with Frank Paetzold, she has also published a children's book on the Bad Dürrenberg shaman and the history of its discovery. It can be ordered globally as a print-on-demand book. /26

But beyond these considerations it is also important to acknowledge that the burial of Bad Dürrenberg has significant meaning to the local people living in the town today. Petra Paetzold, for example, has offered guided tours for a long time, educating children about its importance. /25