The New Methodologies in Primate Archaeology Workshop will be held in Tübingen, Germany, on the 27th & 28th of February 2020.

The ability to use tools is prevalent across a variety of animals. Non-human primates (henceforth: primates) have been the focus of extensive research also due to their phylogenetic relevance for the study of human tool-use. Recently, a new interdisciplinary field, primate archaeology, was created to describe the findings from the application of archaeological methods to primate tool-use sites. The aim of this new field is to provide a sample of archaeological and extant primate materials, which after comparison with the hominin record, provides insight into the evolution of technological behaviours. To date, several primate archaeological sites have been investigated, including bearded capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus; Proffitt et al., 2016), long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea; Falótico et al., 2017) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes; Mercader, Panger, & Boesch, 2002). The study of primate tool technology is of utmost importance as it can shed light on the origins and cognition of hominin stone and plant-tool based technology.

The aim of this two-day workshop is to bring together researchers from across various universities interested in primate archaeology. The workshop will consist of presentation and discussion sessions on the most recent approaches to studying primate archaeology. The main focus of the workshop is to share and learn about the methods that different research groups are using in order to gain insights into the evolution of human technology through the study of primate tool use.