I am a geoarchaeologist and am currently working as a post-doctoral research fellow on a project funded by the Irish Research Council titled: 'Reconstructing activity patterns, behaviour, and occupational phases of early modern humans in the southern Caucasus, 37,000-10,000 years ago' and a project funded by the New Interdisciplinary Initiative Funds of the University College Dublin titled: 'Ancient DNA from speleothems as a new paleoclimate proxy for Palaeolithic research: a pilot study in western Georgia'. Combined these two projects investigate climate change in the Upper Palaeolithic of western Georgia and how Upper Palaeolithic humans reacted to this climate change, specifically in their use of fire and site maintenance.

I did my undergraduate studies in Prehistory and Soil Science at Hamburg University (2007), my Master in Prehistory, Soil Science and Palaeoanthropology at Tuebingen and Hohenheim University (2010) and my PhD in Archaeological Sciences also at Tuebingen University (2014). Both, my Master and PhD are in Geoarchaeology and addressed site formation and human behaviour. The main focus of my PhD was the investigation of the depositional environments of archaeological material and the evidence for fire use at Schoeningen 13 II-4, which site famously preserved the oldest wooden spears.

My geoarchaeological research addresses site formation, preservation issues, human behaviour and climate reconstruction and my main research technique is micromorphology, but I am always looking for methods to supplement it.  My main research focus is the above mentioned project in Georgia and another is in South Africa, where I am taking a regional look at sedimentation patterns in Stone Age rock shelters in the Northwest of South Africa.

                           

 

Book Chapters

Conard, N.J., Bretzke, K., Deckers, K., Hillgruber, F.K., Kandel, A.W., Masri, M., Napierala, H., Riehl, S., Stahlschmidt, M. (2013) 'Natufian lifeways in the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains' In: Bar-Yosef, O., Valla, F (eds). Natufian Foragers in the Levant ¿ Terminal Pleistocene Social Changes in Western Asia. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A: International Monographs in Prehistory. [Details]

 

Peer Reviewed Journals

Stahlschmidt, M.C., Miller, C.E., Ligouis, B., Hambach, U., Goldberg, P., Berna, B., Richter, D., Urban, B., Serangeli, J. & Conard, N.J. (2015) 'On the evidence for human use and control of fire at Schöningen'. Journal of Human Evolution, 89 :181-201. [Details]

Stahlschmidt, M.C., Miller, C.E., Ligouis, B., Goldberg, P., Urban, B., Berna, F., Conard, N.J. (2015) 'The depositional environments of Schöningen 13 II-4 and their archaeological implications'. Journal of Human Evolution, 89 :71-91. [Details]

Julien, M.A., Hardy, B., Stahlschmidt, M.C., Urban, B., Serangeli, J., Conard, N.J (2015) 'Characterizing the Lower Paleolithic bone industry from Schöningen 12 II: a multi-proxy study'. Journal of Human Evolution, 89 :264-286. [Details]

Tolksdorf, J. F., Turner, F., Kaiser, K., Eckmeier, E., Stahlschmidt, M., Housley, R. A., Breest, K., Veil, St. (2013) 'Multiproxy Analyses of Stratigraphy and Palaeoenvironment of the Late Palaeolithic Grabow Floodplain Site, Northern Germany'. Geoarchaeology - An International Journal, 28 (1):50-65. [Details]

                                                                                                                     

Research Interests

Geoarchaeology, Micromorphology, FTIR Spectroscopy, Paleolithic to Early Urbanization, Human-Environment-Interactions, Fire Use, Construction Materials, Speleothems

Research Projects

Sponsor : University College Dublin (UCD) Title : Ancient DNA from speleothems as a new paleoclimate proxy for Palaeolithic research: a pilot study in western Georgia Start Date / End Date : 01-AUG-16 / 31-JAN-18