Project Details
Projekt
FOR 2237: Words, Bones, Genes, Tools - Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past
Subject Area
Humanities
Social and Behavioural Sciences
Social and Behavioural Sciences
Term
since 2015
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 256951808
The study of human prehistory has undergone revolutionary changes in recent years. As a result of interdisciplinary cooperation between the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and genetics, it has been possible to reconstruct in greater detail the early phases of humanity spanning between 40 to 100 thousand years ago. Established methods in historical linguistic are conventionally considered to reach a maximum time depth of 4 to 10 thousand years, thus informing more recent phases of human (pre-)history. The goal of the Center for Advanced Studies is to understand the intervening time period, between approximately 3 to 30 thousand years ago, in greater detail through a cooperation between linguistics, paleoanthropology, archaeology, and genetics. For the first time, such a goal can now be achieved, owing to important advances in each field, such as the availability of paleo-genetic data and phylogenetic applications to linguistics. A remaining obstacle in formulating a new synthesis in the study of bio-cultural co-evolution is the lack of communication between disciplines, particularly amongst qualitative researchers in the humanities and quantitative, computational researchers who employ an explicit methodological framework in the study of the human past. Through its fellowship program, the Center serves as a hub for interdisciplinary exchange and promotes the development of a new, integrated research paradigm.
DFG Programme
Advanced Studies Centres in SSH
Projects
Spokesperson
Professorin Dr. Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou, since 1/2022
