Research

Research Priorities: Phylogenic history of humankind, morphometrics, palaeoanthropology

Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou is a Greek paleoanthropologist. She researches the phylogenic history of humankind, especially the emergence of anatomically modern humans and the paleobiology of Neanderthals. Here, she investigates the relationship between morphological variation and genetic, environmental or behavioral variables, exploring the evolutionary processes underlying species diversity.

In her research Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou devotes herself to human evolution. She researches the adaptation and behaviour of human ancestors and extinct related forms of humans in the course of millions of years, and decodes the impact of environmental factors, behavioural patterns, and population history on their phenotype. She connects methods of palaeoanthropology, computer-aided three-dimensional shape analysis as well as population genetics and simultaneously undertakes fieldwork in Greece. With her reconstructions and comparative analyses of fossilized human remains in Greece, Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou was able to determine, for example, that early Homo sapiens arrived in Europe more than 150 000 years earlier than previously thought. This raises questions about the dispersal patterns of human populations during the Pleistocene and about possible interactions between early anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals.

Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou further researches, how certain behavioural patterns influence the skeleton and how, with this knowledge, behaviour and ways of life of the past can be reconstructed. Her research has underlined that Neanderthals were a sophisticated species, contrary to previous misconceptions.

The research of Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou serves both the deepening of a more detailed understanding of the Neanderthal, as well as the assessment of effects of population contact on the recent human evolutionary history.

Career

• since 2023 Director, Senckenberg Centre of Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Tübingen, Germany
• 2020-2023 Director, Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
• since 2020 Professor II, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
• since 2009 Professor for Palaeoanthropology, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
• 2009 Habilitation, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
• 2004-2009 Senior Scientist, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
• 2001-2004 Assistant Professor for Anthropology, New York University, New York City, USA
• 1998-2001 Ph.D. in Anthropology, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, USA
• 1998 M.A. in Anthropology, CUNY, New York City, USA
• 1994 B.A. in Anthropology, Columbia University, New York City, USA

Functions

• since 2021 Editor in Chief, PaleoAnthropology Journal
• since 2020 President, European Society for the Study of Human Evolution

Projects

• 2022-2028 Advanced Grant “Our first steps to Europe: Pleistocene Homo sapiens dispersals, adaptations and interactions in South-East Europe” (FIRSTSTEPS), European Research Council (ERC)
• 2017-2022 Consolidator Grant “Human Evolution at the Crossroads” (CROSSROADS), ERC
• since 2015 Co-Director, Research Group (FOR 2237) “Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past”, DFG, Germany
• 2012-2016 Starting Grant “Palaeoanthropology at the Gates of Europe” (PaGE), ERC
• 2010 Director, Major Research Instrumentation “High-resolution microfocus and nanofocus computed tomography system” („Hochauflösendes Mikrofokus- und Nanofokus-Computertomographie-System“), DFG, Germany

Honours and Memberships

• since 2022 Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Germany
• 2021 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Prize, DFG, Germany
• 2014 State Research Prize for Foundational Research, Land Baden-Württemberg, Germany
• 2010 Elected Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA