Biography
Since my beginnings in archaeology, I have focused my interest in the biological and behavioural evolution of our species. During the MA programme that I realized at the University of Cádiz (Spain), I specialized in early prehistory; in the cognitive and behavioural development of the early humans, coastal adaptations and aquatic resources.
Africa fascinated me, as this region provides the oldest convincing evidence and bring further understanding of how the evolution of our species is part of a bigger diverse evolutionary landscape. This idea was reinforced since I joined Tübingen University’s projects in South Africa, becoming absolutely passionate about Stone Age in the South and East of Africa. As a result of these campaigns, I have also taken an interest in studying cultural behaviour through the analysis of stone tools and through experimental archaeology.
My years of experience in archaeology also encompasses working for other research projects and preventive archaeology with public institutions and some universities in Spain, as well as abroad.
Research
In my current role I am working as part of the Ngipalajem’s project team to bring a new understanding of how the evolution of our species is part of a broader and longer African evolutionary landscape, undertaking extensive fieldwork and studying old and new fossils of Turkana. This will multiply the available data on hominin and non-hominin diversity in East Africa younger than one million years old.
Finally, I will develop with the team an open access database of new and published information of the palaeoenvironmental, palaeontological, and environmental archaeological records of Africa that in conjunction with a spatially-sensitive chronological framework we will generate models of change through time in order to examine how the ecological parameters could have shaped the evolution and the impact of our own evolution on African ecological communities.