CLIOARCH stands for CLIOdynamic ARCHaeology, a research collective clustered around senior PI Felix Riede. CLIOARCH encompasses a wide and varying portfolio of projects and people, most of whom use computational approaches to understand human behaviour, biodiversity, and climate change - past, present, and future. CLIOARCH started as a European Research Council-funded Consolidator Grant project of the same title. Since 2026, it continues as a research group composed of projects funded from different sources as well as our bundle of micro-funded side projects. Much of what we do seeks to quantify and hence qualify human responses to rapidly changing climates, extreme environmental events, migration and adaptation. Chronologically, we focus on various parts of the Pleistocene, the Holocene, as well as the Anthropocene; we work mostly but not exclusively in Europe.
Read on to meet the team and explore our publications.
People at CLIOARCH
PIs
PIs
PhD students
PhD students
CLIOARCH post-doctoral affiliates
CLIOARCH post-doctoral affiliates
Saxbee James Affleck
Postdoc School of Culture and Society - Department of Archeology and Heritage Studies
Katherine Magoulick
Postdoc School of Culture and Society - Department of Archeology and Heritage StudiesFrancesco Ravasini
Postdoc Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Bioinformatics & Computational Biology (BiRC)
Former CLIOARCH postdocs
Former CLIOARCH postdocs
Dr. Izzy Wisher
Now Renfrew Fellow at Cambridge University.
Dr. Andreu Arinyo i Prats
Now Postdoc at Maine University.
Dr. Sheina Lew-Levy
Now Associate Professor at Durham University.
Dr. Nathalie Ø. Brusgaard
Now Assistant Professor at Leiden University.
Dr. Sarah Kerr
Now Lecturer in Archaeology at University College Cork.
Dr. Thomas Hess
CLIOARCH visitors
CLIOARCH visitors
Letícia Cristina Correa
FAPESP visiting postdoc (São Paulo University, Brazil), Aug 2026-Feb 2027
Email: leticiacorrea@usp.br
Benedetta Nardi
ERASMUS exchange student (Ferrara University, Italy), Aug 2026-Nov 2026
Email: benedetta.nardi01@gmail.com
Paul E. Smaldino
AUFF visiting researcher (University of California, Merced), Sept 2025-Oct 2025
Email: leticiacorrea@usp.br
Iulia Bădescu
AUFF visiting researcher (University of Montreal, Canada), Dec 2024-March 2025
Email: leticiacorrea@usp.br
Inga Fauth
ERASMUS intern (Hildesheim University, Germany), Oct 2021-Dec 2021
Email: hansman@uni-hildesheim.de
Kalliroi 'Iro' Tsirintoulaki
ERASMUS intern (Leiden University, Netherlands), Sept 2020-March 2021
Email: k.tsirintoulaki@umail.leidenuniv.nl
Brea McCauley
Visiting PhD student (Simon Fraser University, Canada), Feb-April 2020
Email: bmccaule@sfu.ca
Website: https://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/graduate/grad_students/mcCauley.html
Colin D. Wren
Visiting Professor (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), Sept-Nov 2022
Email: cwren@uccs.edu
Website: https://anthropology.uccs.edu/colin-wren
Maria Barrera Cruz
Visiting Ph.D. student (University of Valencia, Spain), Sept-Dec 2022
Email: maria.barrera@uv.es
Website: https://www.uv.es/uvweb/universidad/es/ficha-persona-1285950309813.html?p2=bacruzma&idA=true
Renata Pedroso de Araújo
Visiting Ph.D. student (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Sept-Dec 2022
Email: rennyaraujo@yahoo.com
Website: https://bv.fapesp.br/en/pesquisador/96545/renata-pedroso-de-araujo
Mikel Díaz Rodriguez
'Margaria Salas' visiting post-doc (University of Santiago, Spain), March 2022-Feb 2023, now Interim Lecturer of Prehistory at the Faculty of History of the University of Vigo, and fellow at CISPAC (Interuniversity Research Centre for Atlantic Cultural Landscapes)
Email: mikel.diaz.rodriguez@gmail.com
Website: https://cispac.gal/en/scientific-staff/mikel-diaz-rodriguez/
José Ramón Rabuñal Gayo
'Margaria Salas' visiting post-doc (University of Alicante, Spain), March 2022-Feb 2023, now postdoctoral fellow at CISPAC (Interuniversity Research Centre for Atlantic Cultural Landscapes)
Email: jr.rabunal@gmail.com
Website: https://cispac.gal/en/scientific-staff/jose-ramon-rabunal-gayo/
CLIOARCH publications
Kitagawa, K., Burger-Völlmecke, D., Brown, S., Olsen, J. & Riede, F. (2026). Die altsteinzeitliche Besiedlung im Lahntal: neue Datierungen aus den Höhlen Wildscheuer, Wildhaus und Wildweiberlei an der Lahn. Nassauische Annalen, 137, 9-25.
Hess, T., Matzig, D. & Riede, F. (2026). Morphometric Analyses of Late Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic Projectile Points from Central Germany. Lithic Technology, 51(2), 135-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/01977261.2025.2491158
Milks, A. & Riede, F. (2025). Archaeological perspectives. In A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning: Theoretical, Methodological, Practical, and Ethical Considerations for an Interdisciplinary Field (pp. 139-142). Open Book Publishers.
BADESCU, IULIA., McKerracher, L. J., Sellen, D. W., Watts, D. & Riede, F. (2025). Atypical Tool and Object Use in Wild Immature Chimpanzees Reveals Developmental Pathways to Innovation. Scientific Reports, 15(1), Article 36396. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-20487-8
Kroupin, I., Riede, F., Nowell, A. & Medaets, C. (2025). Charting a middle course: Theory and methods in the practice of cross-cultural research. In A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning: Theoretical, Methodological, Practical, and Ethical Considerations for an Interdisciplinary Field (pp. 67). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0440.03
Wisher, I., Riede, F., Matthews, J., Pagnotta, M. & Tylén, K. (2025). Children as Playful Artists: Integrating Developmental Psychology to Identify Children’s Art in the Upper Palaeolithic. Hunter Gatherer Research, 11(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.3828/hgr.2024.38
Riede, F. & Nowell, A. (2025). Children of the ice age: Apprenticeship, communities of practice and embodied cognition in deep-time hunter-gatherer archaeology. In A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning: Theoretical, Methodological, Practical, and Ethical Considerations for an Interdisciplinary Field (pp. 47-49). Open Book Publishers.
Iversen, R. & Riede, F. (2025). Culture change in archaeology. In M. Robbeets & M. Hudson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology and Language (pp. 156-168). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192868350.013.35
Schmidt, I., Gehlen, B., Winkler, K., Arrizabalaga, A., Arts, N., Bicho, N., Crombé, P., Eriksen, B. V., Grimm, S. B., Kapustka, K., Langlais, M., Mevel, L., Naudinot, N., Nerudová, Z., Niekus, M., Peresani, M., Riede, F., Sauer, F., Schön, W. ... Maier, A. (2025). Large scale and regional demographic responses to climatic changes in Europe during the Final Palaeolithic. PLoS One, 20, Article e0310942. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310942
Maier, A., Sauer, F., Orrin, J., Nguyen, T. M. H., Schmolz, S., Mygdam, F., Juul, C. & Riede, F. (2025). Mesolithische Funde aus der Hollenkammer bei Lütersheim. hessen Archäologie, 2024, 56-59.
Kitagawa, K., Burger-Völlmecke, D., Brown, S., Olsen, J. & Riede, F. (2025). Paleolithic occupations in the Lahn Valley of Central Germany: New dating and ZooMS results from Wildscheuer, Wildweiberlei, and Wildhaus. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 61, Article 104951. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104951
Meyer, M. V. & Riede, F. (2025). Playing to Survive: Children and Innovation During the Little Ice Age in Greenland. European Journal of Archaeology, 28(1), 81-100. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2024.36
Riede, F. (2025). Play Object Play: A database of toys and tools made for and/or used by children from subsistence societies. https://play-object-play.au.dk/?page=1
Meyer, M. V., Pedersen, J. B., Matzig, D. N. & Riede, F. (2025). Skills, scaling, and the role of youngsters in adaptation during the Northern European Final Palaeolithic. Journal of Lithic Studies, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.10853
Wisher, I., Birch, T., Andreasen, R., Canosa, E., Norrehed, S., Reguer, S., Lemasson, Q., Oras, E., Johanson, K., Kinnaird, T., Birndorfer, T., Pedersen, J. B., Scott, J., Pearce, C. & Riede, F. (2025). The earliest evidence of blue pigment use in Europe. Antiquity, 99(408), 1464-1479. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10184
Hussain, S. T., Hellerøe, S. F., Dalager, H. N., Nielsen, E. S., Vinter, M. & Riede, F. (2025). Was the Late Glacial human occupation of northernmost Europe facilitated by whales? New data and perspectives on lithic technology and the paleoecology of the Vendsyssel area, Northern Jutland, Denmark. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 20(2), 317-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2023.2277727
Matzig, D. N., Marwick, B., Riede, F. & Warnock, R. C. M. (2024). A macroevolutionary analysis of European Late Upper Palaeolithic stone tool shape using a Bayesian phylodynamic framework. Royal Society Open Science, 11(8), Article 240321. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240321
Andreasen, L. S., Cornér, J., Abbott, P. M., Sinclair, V. A., Riede, F. & Timmreck, C. (2024). Changes in Northern Hemisphere extra-tropicalcyclone frequency following volcanic eruptions. Environmental Research: Climate, 3(2), 025002. Article 025002. https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/ad2c0e, https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/ad2c0e
Riede, F., Pedersen, J. B., Birndorfer, T. & Steffens, P. (2024). Geoarchäologisch motivierte Grabung am spätpaläolithischen Fundplatz Mühlheim-Dietesheim. hessen Archäologie, 2023, 65-69.
Riede, F. & Lombard, M. (2024). Hunting with poisoned arrows during the Terminal Pleistocene in Northern Europe? A tip cross-sectional area assessment and list of potential arrow poison ingredients. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 59, Article 104757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104757
Matzig, D. N. (2024). New Cultural Taxonomies for the European Final Palaeolithic. [PhD dissertation, Aarhus University].
Yaworsky, P. M., Hussain, S. T. & Riede, F. (2024). The effects of climate and population on human land use patterns in Europe from 22ka to 9ka ago. Quaternary Science Reviews, 344, Article 108956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108956
Tsirintoulaki, K., Matzig, D. N. & Riede, F. (2023). A 2D Geometric Morphometric Assessment of Chrono-Cultural Trends in Osseous Barbed Points of the European Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic. Open Archaeology, 9(1), Article 20220276. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0276
Hussain, S. T., Riede, F., Matzig, D. N., Biard, M., Crombé, P., Fernández-Lopéz de Pablo, J., Fontana, F., Groß, D., Hess, T., Langlais, M., Mevel, L., Mills, W., Moník, M., Naudinot, N., Posch, C., Rimkus, T., Stefański, D. & Vandendriessche, H. (2023). A pan-European dataset revealing variability in lithic technology, toolkits, and artefact shapes ~15-11 kya. Scientific Data, 10(1), Article 593. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02500-9
Hussain, S. T., Plutniak, S. & Riede, F. (2023). Automation and Novelty - Archaeocomputational Typo-Praxis in the Wake of the Third Science Revolution. PCI Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.archaeo.100307 . https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.archaeo.100307
Araujo, R. P., Riede, F., Okumura, M., Araujo, A. G. M., Leplongeon, A., Wren, C., Rabuñal, J. R., Cardillo, M., Cruz, M. B. & Matzig, D. N. (2023). Benchmarking methods and data for the whole-outline geometric morphometric analysis of lithic tools. Evolutionary Anthropology, 32(3), 124-127. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21981
Yaworsky, P. M., Hussain, S. T. & Riede, F. (2023). Climate-driven habitat shifts of high-ranked prey species structure Late Upper Paleolithic hunting. Scientific Reports, 13(1), Article 4238. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31085-x
Pedersen, J. B., Assmann, J. J., Normand, S., Karger, D. N. & Riede, F. (2023). Climate Niche Modeling Reveals the Fate of Pioneering Late Pleistocene Populations in Northern Europe. Current Anthropology, 64(5), 599-608. https://doi.org/10.1086/726700
Matzig, D. N., Schmid, C. & Riede, F. (2023). Mapping the field of cultural evolutionary theory and methods in archaeology using bibliometric methods. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10(1), Article 271. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01767-y
Hellerøe, S. F., Dalager, H. N., Hussain, S. T. & Riede, F. (2023). Nye fund fra 'en ø ved verdens ende' og betydningen af kystens ressourcer i Allerødtiden (ca. 14.000 - 13.000 år før nu). Vendsyssel Nu & Da, 2021/2022(34), 55-70. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825117
Ordonez, A. & Riede, F. (2022). Changes in limiting factors for forager population dynamics in Europe across the last glacial-interglacial transition. Nature Communications, 13(1), Article 5140. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32750-x
Allen, K. J., Riede, F., Gouramanis, C., Keenan, B., Stoffel, M., Hu, A. & Ionita, M. (2022). Coupled insights from the palaeoenvironmental, historical and archaeological archives to support social-ecological resilience and the sustainable development goals. Environmental Research Letters, 17(5), Article 055011. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6967
Groucutt, H. S., Prendergast, A. L. & Riede, F. (2022). Editorial: Extreme events in human evolution: From the Pliocene to the Anthropocene: From the Pliocene to the Anthropocene. Frontiers in Earth Science, 10, Article 1026989. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.1026989
Pedersen, J. B., Poulsen, M. E. & Riede, F. (2022). Jels 3, a New Late Palaeolithic Open-Air Site in Denmark, Sheds Light on the Pioneer Colonization of Northern Europe. Journal of Field Archaeology, 47(6), 360-378. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2022.2086346
Riede, F., Araujo, A. & Marwick, B. (2022). Robert C. Dunnell's Systematics in Prehistory at 50. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 4(e16), Article e16. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.18
Degroot, D., Anchukaitis, K. J., Tierney, J. E., Riede, F., Manica, A., Moesswilde, E. & Gauthier, N. (2022). The history of climate and society: A review of the influence of climate change on the human past. Environmental Research Letters, 17(10), Article 103001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac8faa
Hess, T. & Riede, F. (2022). The Occurrence of Lithic Raw Materials in the Western Part of Central Germany. Open Quaternary, 8(1), p.1. Article 8. https://doi.org/10.5334/oq.108
Lundström, V., Peters, R. & Riede, F. (2021). Demographic estimates from the Palaeolithic–Mesolithic boundary in Scandinavia: comparative benchmarks and novel insights. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1816), Article 20200037. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0037
Matzig, D. N., Hussain, S. T. & Riede, F. (2021). Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points: A Comparison of Typological, Landmark‑Based and Whole‑Outline Geometric Morphometric Approaches. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 4(4), Article 27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-021-00097-2
Hussain, S. T., Matzig, D. N. & Riede, F. (2021). Gillings, M., Hacıgüzeller, P. & Lock, G. (eds) (2019). Re-Mapping Archaeology. Critical Perspectives, Alternative Mappings. Archaeologische Informationen, 43(2020), 541-546. https://doi.org/10.11588/ai.2020.1.82210
Niemeier, U., Riede, F. & Timmreck, C. (2021). Simulation of ash clouds after a Laacher See-type eruption. Climate of the Past, 17(2), 633-652. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-633-2021
Hess, T. & Riede, F. (2021). The use of lithic raw materials at the Early Mesolithic open-air site Feuersteinacker (Vogelsbergkreis, Germany). Geoarchaeology, 36(2), 252-265. https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21828
Abbott, P. M., Niemeier, U., Timmreck, C., Riede, F., McConnell, J. R., Severi, M., Fischer, H., Svensson, A., Toohey, M., Reinig, F. & Sigl, M. (2021). Volcanic climate forcing preceding the inception of the Younger Dryas: Implications for tracing the Laacher See eruption. Quaternary Science Reviews, 274, 107260. Article 107260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107260
Ivanovaitė, L., Serwatka, K., Hoggard, C. S., Sauer, F. & Riede, F. (2020). All these Fantastic Cultures? Research History and Regionalization in the Late Palaeolithic Tanged Point Cultures of Eastern Europe. European Journal of Archaeology, 23(2), 162-185. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.59
Riede, F., Hussain, S. T., Timmreck, C. & Svenning, J.-C. (2020). CLIOdynamic ARCHaeology: computational approaches to Final Palaeolithic/Early Mesolithic archaeology and climate change. Antiquity, 94(375), Article e13. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.85
Riede, F., Araujo, A. G. M., Barton, M. C., Bergsvik, K. A., Groucutt, H. S., Hussain, S. T., Fernandez-Lopez de Pablo, J., Maier, A., Marwick, B., Pyne, L., Ranhorn, K., Reynolds, N., Riel-Salvatore, J., Sauer, F., Serwatka, K. & Zander, A. (2020). Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic—Old questions, novel perspectives. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29(2), 49-52. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21819