The Doctoral School PALPROX fosters a unique interdisciplinary and collaborative research frame in which the Doctoral Candidates will work on their Individual Research Projects around a common program: The use of small vertebrates as a proxy in Prehistoric Archaeology. We aim to focus on the studies of Late Pleistocene small vertebrates to gain insight into the studied taxonomic groups found in archaeological sites, but also to face the new challenges posed by interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological studies, and their contributions to the debate about climate change and biodiversity loss. Small vertebrates, due to their reduced size, small habitat ranges and in most cases low mobility, are known to be more sensitive to regional changes than large mammals and plants, especially in Europe where mountain ranges and sea barriers block their retreat to the south. In addition, fossil small vertebrates can help to modern conservation biology, providing predictive clues based on long-term biodiversity archives. In general, knowledge of the small vertebrate Quaternary record can help to better understand current extinction dynamics, response to climate changes or ecological turning points. Finally, taking advantage of synergies with other disciplines, fossil small vertebrates studies have incorporated new methodologies such as Geometric Morphometrics, Oxygen Isotope studies or ancient DNA, and introducing Geospatial and MaxEnt tools into the analyses of both fossil and modern specimens. These approaches very much complement, but do not replace, a basal training in the fundamental methods based on osteological and morphometric description. As a result, PALPROX will support promising Doctoral worldwide candidates passionate about interdisciplinary research, supporting the increasing diversity of career paths in Europe’s research landscape and providing fellows with the training, mentoring and career development support needed to become leaders in academia and beyond.

The objective of this project is to study energy procurement practices and its relationship with environmental, economic, and social sustainability. To do so, we aim to carry out ethnoarchaeological fieldwork regarding fuel-related practices among the Vedda indigenous communities in Sri Lanka. In parallel, we will develop archaeobotanical research to interrogate these questions in prehistoric and early historical periods of the island. The building of a wood reference collection will be key and will boost the development of proper charcoal analyses. The results of this research will be integrated to create an educational resource for museums, botanical gardens and schools, with the aim to bring the study of humans and plants interactions to the general public. This project requires f different methodologies, whose field of expertise, facilities and knowledge are shared between academic and non-academic organizations in France, Spain, and Sri Lanka. For the successful development of the project, we involve 21 persons with different categories (PhD students, postdoctoral and senior researchers, technicians, and members of non-academic organizations) developing a total of 64 months of secondments in the institutions involved. This project will set up the basis for sustainable collaboration between academic institutions working on archaeological charcoal and ethnoarchaeology of fuel, and non-academic institutions engaged in educational resources on ethnobotany and the diversity of human uses of plants. The project is organized in 5 packages including four objectives and the management and dissemination of the project. The research will be carried out through long-term secondments by PhD students and shorter secondments by senior researchers and non-academic members. This project will provide scientific impact by delivering training and resources for the study of charcoal remains and socio and economic impact throughout the production of an educational resource.

Anthropogenic sites often emerge from overlapping actions and/or occupations that include disruptive processes. Consequently, the palimpsests that arise can have a disorderly appearance, which may complicate the interpretation of such sites. The problem is worsened when some agents, such as carnivore scavengers, act on the archaeological record, causing the remains to disappear and leaving no obvious signs of their passage. Such occurrences have important consequences for archaeological studies, especially when trying to apply ethnographically-derived postulates created in high-resolution temporal contexts. However, new interpretations that are more complete can overcome this problem if the behaviour of scavengers is modelled using controlled experimental programs with wild carnivores (neo-taphonomy). SCAVENGERS consists of monitoring experimental reproductions of hearth-related assemblages (like those described in archaeological contexts) exposed to different species of wild carnivores: hyenas, lions, bears, wolves, and other smaller carnivores. The results will then be subsequently tested on different Middle Palaeolithic assemblages using Artificial Intelligence through computer techniques based on convolutional neural networks. However, the main aim is to generate cross-sectional data that can be applied to all periods and geographic areas, overcoming the limits of traditional archaeological methods to make accurate inferences about past human behaviour. The results of this project will contribute to the development of a new paradigm, changing some basic ideas about prehistory. There is a risk of generating a huge and unmanageable quantity of variables from neo-taphonomy. However, accumulated information and experience will provide valuable data and information for other areas of knowledge, such as those related to naturalistic studies, animal behaviour, and management of natural resources/parks.

Caudates, one of three extant lineages of amphibians, are a rich and diverse clade that rely heavily on water for reproduction and development and are known to be important palaeoecological indicators. Records indicate that less than 10% of Neogene caudates are known to be preserved as articulated skeletons, and in Lagerstätte type of preservation is even rarer still. This study will investigate caudates from the Camp del Ninots Lagerstätte using micro-computed tomography scans (μCT) to build a taxonomic framework and use three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to analyse shape differences for phylogenetic/taxonomic value. This study will also compare morphological shape differences using μCT of caudates from different sexes and determine whether there are sexual dimorphic morphological characters within Spanish caudates. Morphological characters and genomic data will be combined to identify Pliocene aged caudates recovered from the Camp del Ninots Lagerstätte using Bayesian phylogenetics, which will provide time-calibrations of when the Spanish fossil caudates originated in comparison to extant congeners. Caudates identified by Bayesian phylogenetic methods will then act as fossil calibration points to phylogeographically determine how caudates dispersed spatio-temporally into Spain from Africa or the rest of Europe. It is hoped that this research can improve our understanding of caudate evolution in the Neogene, but also how we can project caudate responses to climatic change in the future and mitigate biodiversity loss.