Investigating Social Learning in the Earliest Stone Tools using Computer Simulations  

Emplois, bourses, prix

 

beginning of 2018
University of Tübingen

 

Background

Cultural adaptations have allowed humans to colonise the planet. While discovering the roots of human culture has been described as one of the 125 most important scientific questions of our time (Science, 2005, anniversary issue), it remains unclear when such forms of culture first arose in our lineage. Progress in this area has been hampered by a lack of null-models (or referential frameworks) for different cultural scenarios against which the significance of different forms of early stone tools can be evaluated. Simulation, like agent-based modelling, is a promising tool to provide these models.

 

As part of the STONECULT project, the PhD candidate will use published data (as well as data that our team continues to produce) to write software that can repetitively and realistically knap, in 3D, flakes from virtual stone cores. [...]

 

This PhD will be supervised by STONECULT's PI Dr. Claudio Tennie – together with the two external STONECULT collaborators Prof. Harold Dibble (the University of Pennsylvania) and Dr. Shannon McPherron (MPI EVA, Leipzig). In addition, further local supervision at the professorial level will be provided in uncovered relevant fields (e.g. in material science, mathematics, computer science etc. – depending on the gaps of knowledge and expertise of the chosen PhD candidate).

 

Plus d'infos

 

Contact
Dr. Claudio Tennie
claudio.tennie@uni-tuebingen.de

 

Deadline for applications is 12:00 (midday, German time) the 22nd of December, 2017

 

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