News

An innovative study published in Science which included the involvement of UAB archaeologists reveals that the remarkable diversity characterising dogs today began some 11,000 years ago. The study thus questions traditional hypotheses that point to this diversity being largely the result of the selective breeding done by Victorian kennel clubs.

The production of El Argar pottery was organized in specialised workshops located next to specific clay deposits, far from the main centres of power, according to a new study lead by UAB researchers and published in in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This production model reinforces the existence of a complex, hierarchical, supra-local organisation in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age.

The Centre for the Study of Prehistoric Archaeological Heritage (CEPAP) of the UAB Department of Prehistory has obtained two grants from the Catalan Ministry for Research and Universities to promote the development and transfer of its SUGAR software (Software for Unified Governance of Archaeological Research). The projects, awarded in this year's call for proposals for the Knowledge Industry (IdC) programme, were the only ones in the humanities' field to be funded in the Product and Innovators categories.

The UAB celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Archaeology and Palaeontology Campus with a conference on the history and future challenges of this network, made up of archaeological sites, municipal facilities, museums and archaeological parks in which the University carries out part of its teaching and research in both disciplines. The campus is a strategic project of the UAB that represents an essential improvement in the training of archaeologists and palaeontologists in Catalonia, with the introduction of compulsory practices in archaeology and paleontology as a distinctive feature.

The Periodicals Room of the Humanities Library will be hosting the exhibition InterMedit - El viatge possible, which connects Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Occitania through trade and cultural contacts in the ancient Mediterranean. The exhibition, which will be inaugurated on 29 October at 1:00 p.m., will include the collaboration of the Digital Lab and the CORE in Cultural Heritage.

An international study with the involvement of the UAB, published in Nature Scientific Reports, reveals new findings based on the teeth found at five archaeological sites in Syria. These findings give new insights into how the world’s first farming villagers formed communities, moved across the land, and responded to outsiders. The research reconstructs mobility patterns that had never been observed before.

The Department of Prehistory is taking part in the 2025 European Researchers’ Night.

The Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) is organizing a series of academic and cultural activities to raise awareness and foster debate on sexism in the field of archaeology.

Archaeologist Roberto Risch, professor in the Department of Prehistory, and science historian Marco Armiero, ICREA researcher at the Institut d’Història de la Ciència (IHC), receive an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in the 2024 call for proposals.

A study with the involvement of the UAB, IPHES-CERCA and URV, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, provides for the first time direct fossil evidence of frugivory in South American mastodons and shows the lasting ecological impact of their extinction.