About Us

Group leader

Dr Claudio Tennie: Junior research group leader ("Tools and Culture among Early Hominins") in the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

Principal investigator of the ERC STONECULT Project.

Dr Elisa Bandini: Postdoctorate researcher working on the cognitive mechanisms behind primate tool manufacture and use. Combines her background in archaeology with current work in primatology and cultural evolution to examine the evolution of early hominin cognition and culture.

Dr Alba Motes Rodrigo: PhD student working on the stone tool manufacture abilities of great apes. Part of the ERC STONECULT project in which we investigate if early stone tools are the product of cumulative culture or if they are best explained by the latent solutions model.

Jordy Orellana F.: PhD student of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Advanced Computer Science graduate from Swansea University. Currently working on computer models for early Hominin lithic production as part of the ERC STONECULT project for the study of the latent solutions model.

William Daniel Snyder: Doctoral candidate in the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany. Background in higher education began with a B.S. with majors in Anthropology and Human Biology and German Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA, followed by an M.Sc. in Scientific Archaeology from the University of Tübingen. For PhD work, will be focusing again on cognitive experimental archaeology of the Lower Paleolithic/Early Stone Age.

Li Li: PhD student in the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. MS in computer science from University of California, Davis, MA in anthropology from University of Pennsylvania. I am interested in topics related to human evolution. Currently working on controlled experiments to learn about flake formation and hominid behavior as part of the ERC STONECULT project.

David Boysen: Research Assistant & Archeologist (M.A.). Currently working on technological aspects and features of bifacial stone tools and their significance regarding cultural, socioeconomic, and behavioral changes in the european late middle paleolithic context.

Dr Eva Reindl: Did her PhD in the lab. Interested in cultural evolution and cumulative culture. Developmental psychologist by training and my most recent work looked at the ontogenetic origins of the ratchet effect in young children. Moved on to a postdoctoral research position at The University of St. Andrews.

Dr Zanna Clay [Marie Curie Fellow in lab 2015-2017]: Comparative and developmental psychologist/primatologist interested in the evolution of language, empathy and culture. Specialist in bonobo behaviour and communication. Moved on to become an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University.

Alison Gwilliams MSc: Worked with children to investigate independent learning and the processes underlying cumulative culture. Moved on to become a PhD student at Aston University.

Dr Sofia Forss: Postdoctorate researcher on comparative cognition in great apes. Researching how rearing conditions and individual background histories influence the development of cognitive skills within and across the great ape species. Project (Swiss National Science Foundation, SNF - P2ZHP3_171902) : Comparing the effects of early experience and cognitive plasticity across the great apes.

Dr Jonathan Reeves: Post-doctoral researcher. My work focuses on using quantitative methods to better understand the link between Early Stone Age stone tool variability and hominin culture and ecology.

Dr Damien Neadle: PhD student at the University of Birmingham, UK. Tests chimpanzee behaviours, that are claimed to be the products of copying social learning in other species of great ape (bonobos, gorillas and orangutans) to determine whether they can be explained by the Zone of Latent Solutions hypothesis (Tennie et al., 2009). Also interested in bonobo tool use in general, and the differences between captive and wild bonobos tool use repertoires. All of this is done with the view to compile a list of behaviours, which qualify as Latent Solutions, that are shared between all non-human species of great ape.