Humans exhibit a remarkable ability to adapt to new or rapidly changing environments quickly, including high-altitude, Arctic and arid ones. While we can assume shared biological factors at the root of human innovative capacity, the adaptation to different environments was primarily accomplished through behavioral rather than genetic plasticity. The nature and tempo of modern human dispersals within and out of Africa indicate that the complex social and behavioral foundations underlying the ability to adapt to novel environmental conditions were likely already in place prior to the dispersals. Understanding early adaptations to extreme environments can therefore provide insights into the success of modern human dispersals. Despite a recent intensification of archaeological research in the more extreme environments of southern Africa, they remain understudied in comparison to richer environments such as the Mediterranean Fynbos, Savannah and Grassland Biomes. The ARIMAS project seeks to contribute to the renewed research effort in arid environments by locating and excavating new archaeological sites in southern Namibia with a particular focus on tapping into new terrestrial climate archives to better contextualize the traces of human presence in the area from the Middle Pleistocene into the Holocene.
Seminar Recording
The role of arid environments in human evolution – new research in the mountains of southwestern Namibia
About the Speaker
Dr. Matthias Blessing is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the Middle and Later Stone Age as well as early pastoralism in southern Africa. His research project ARIMAS is situated in southern Namibia to investigate human lifeways in arid conditions throughout the Holocene and Pleistocene. He holds a PhD and MA from the University of Tübingen and a BA from the University of Leipzig. He has recently been awarded an Emmy Noether grant by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to establish an independent research group at the University of Cologne to extend his previous research in Namibia (to commence in October 2026).
