Precision dating of the Palaeolithic :
chronological mapping of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia
Address
Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art
Dyson Perrins Building
South Parks Road
OX1 3QY
Oxford
Publications and other interests
Dr Katerina Douka
Postdoctoral researcher
My work on the PalaeoChron project is to investigate Palaeolithic sites and refine their chronologies using radiocarbon and Bayesian statistics. I am specially interested in dating sites in the Near East, Central and South Asia. These are particularly challenging areas where preservation of organics is usually very low therefore new dating approaches and types of material should be employed.
I am also responsible for the ostrich eggshell investigation of the project, using both radiocarbon and U-series. For updated information see here.
In June 2017, I started my own ERC Starting Grant with the acronym FINDER (Fossil Fingerprinting and Identification of New Denisovan remains from Pleistocene Asia), based at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Education and Previous work
I came to Oxford from my native Greece in 2005 to study for a Masters and a DPhil degree in Archaeological Science. My doctoral research involved the development of an analytical protocol for screening and dating carbonates using radiocarbon (the so-called CarDS method; Carbonate density separation), and the application of this new methodology to the dating of early shell beads from ~20 Upper Palaeolithic sites across Eurasia.
Between 2011-2013, I worked as a post-doctoral researcher on the AHOB ("Ancient Human Occupation of Britain 3") project in collaboration with the British Museum and the Natural History Museum London (here's a recent report). The focus of this work was the redating of major Gravettian sequences so that we understand the origins, spread and evolution of this technocomplex around Europe. It included the dating of reference sites like Abri Pataud, La Gravette, Isturitz, Dolni Vestonice, Paglicci and the Kostenki complex.
Prior to coming to the UK, I lived and worked in Spain (Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid) and Egypt (St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai).
I have excavated in Greece, France, Morocco, Spain, Cyprus, Egypt, Russia.