Benjamin Utting

🐘 check out our newest paper from Liang Bua! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Did H. floresiensis hunt Stegodon? 🔪 Did they also had control use of fire? 🔥 We tested these early claims of complex behavior using taphonomy, experimental archaeology, and zooarchaeology of the Stegodon assemblage.

Our new special issue in @archaeometry.bsky.social on "What can lithics tell us about anthropological archaeology's grand challenges?" edited by @benjaminutting.bsky.social and Isis Mesfin. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754754...

Amazing opportunity with one of the brightest minds in SEA Palaeolithic archaeology! @egveatch.bsky.social

We’re losing the climate fight partly because we’re communicating badly. Doom. Guilt. Scary stats. The behavioral science says almost none of it works. Here’s what the science actually says works 👇

"Papua New Guinea has detailed its plans to protect approximately 200,000 km² of Pacific Ocean waters – an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom – from fishing and all other destructive human activity." Papua New Guinea announces largest MPA in its history share.google/Lx6z18O1Bhiw...

Here's another exciting opportunity to join the ERC FORAGER team! This one is a 3-year postdoc on paleoclimate modelling with the fantastic Matt Osman here in @cam.ac.uk, with opportunity for synergies (pun intended 😜) with other team members in archaeology and zoology www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/54411/

Very much looking forward to the upcoming Garrod Seminar Series themed 'Artificial Intelligence & the Past's Future' with some fantastic speakers (see below!). You can attend the seminar series online via Zoom (registration link: talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/1...) - starting this Thursday!

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I have accepted the position of Independent Group Leader in Experimental Archaeology at the University of Tübingen! The program will focus on establishing a reference collection for taphonomic phenomena specific to Island Southeast Asia 😁 🐘🏝️🇮🇩🦴

A very fun Vice article on our discovery from northern Vietnam: www.vice.com/en/article/h... by @luisprada.bsky.social

Rock art from the Raja Ampat islands of Papua doi.org/10.70460/jpa...

The next CAA-UK will be hosted by @cam-archaeology.bsky.social ! Very much looking forward to hearing the latest research from the current and the next generation of computational and quantitative archaeologists (not just from the UK) : uk.caa-international.org/caa-uk-2025-2/ (deadline 29/9/2025)

👏👏 Congratulations to our colleague Marjolein D. Bosch on receiving an #ERC Starting Grant for her COPE project. She will explore how Ice Age hunters and gatherers responded to cold temperatures, resource scarcity 💦 🦌 🌱 , and environmental changes 30,000 years ago. More info: buff.ly/EGicG8z

I'm delighted that the first publication from a National Science Foundation-funded study I led studying the development and implementation of teaching resources on human and non-human evolution in Alabama high school biology classrooms was published a few days ago! (1/2)

Fabulous news that @martamlahr.bsky.social has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy 🍾🍾🍾

Coverage of our recent paper on Pleistocene translocations of marsupials

Amazing and much-needed paper!!

What can lithics tell us about key topics in archaeology - a few great articles already online in our special issue of @archaeometry.bsky.social and more articles to come: doi.org/10.1111/arcm... doi.org/10.1111/arcm... doi.org/10.1111/arcm...

New paper on some of the first ancient genomes from New Guinea doi.org/10.1038/s415...

The Invertebrate Paleontology department at the AMNH is seeking a full-time Museum Specialist. www.indeed.com/viewjob?from...

Professor Anna Källén, Umeå University, speaking around her new book The Trouble with Ancient DNA: Telling Stories of the Ancient Past with Genomic Science (The University of Chicago Press, 2025) @ucph-soa.bsky.social

Had a lot of fun writing this piece for The Conversation. Much different than writing an academic article. The editors were amazing to work with and super helpful! 🏺🏺 theconversation.com/was-it-a-sto...

Merci pour tous les bons moments partagés. Tu vas nous manquer, Pierre. Thank you for the wonderful moments we shared. We will miss you Pierre.

Scoop: DOGE officials met with leadership at the National Gallery of Art this week to discuss the museum's legal status www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"What we need to fix this thing is rational hope." - Katharine Hayhoe Our chief climate scientist, @katharinehayhoe.com, inspires us to stay hopeful and take action against climate change. Discover her optimistic approach and how we can all contribute to a sustainable future.

This paper will be in our forthcoming #Lithics special issue: What can lithics tell us about hominin technology's ‘primordial soup’? An origin of stone knapping via the emulation of Mother Nature onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #EarlyView #OpenAccess

Incredibly proud that our paper on the #palaeoproteomics analysis of the Penghu mandible, led by @tsutatsuta.bsky.social and in collaboration with Chun-Hsiang Chang, Enrico Cappellini and co, is out now in @science.org! doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Disparition inquiétante de Pierre Noiret, professeur en préhistoire à l'université de Liège, Belgique www.police.be/avis-de-rech...

Very excited to share our new paper on Fire Use during the LGM at Korman'9, Ukraine! Check it out! #geoarchaeology, #micromorphology, #pyrotechnology, #LGM, #Paleolithic, #archaeology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Our new paper reports a complete Quina technological system in the 60-50 ka assemblage at Longtan, Southwest China Ruan, Q. et al. (2025) Quina lithic technology indicates diverse Late Pleistocene human dynamics in East Asia doi.org/10.1073/pnas... 🆓 faculty.washington.edu/bmarwick/PDF...

We polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Here, we propose a new perspective on early stone tool technology: emulation of naturally occurring sharp-edged stones (naturaliths) instead of inventing via 'Eureka!' moments. Nature provided the blueprint; hominins took it further. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/arcm... #Archaeology #Stonetools

Happy to escape the US to Panama City for a science communication/policy workshop! 🇵🇦🇵🇦🇵🇦

This Saturday (Feb. 8), there's a sensory-friendly event for neurodivergent folks and their families to check out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History before it opens for the day. I'll be in the Hall of Human Origins to answer questions! Register in advance here: access.si.edu/program/morn...

Great new paper by Melina Seabrook on improving the identification of caprine mandibles using integrated zooarchaeological analysis! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #archaeology #zooarchaeology #zooms

I'm hiring two upper-level undergraduates (or recent graduates) this August for a 3 week long PAID Smithsonian internship in Connecticut. We'll be visiting several archaeological collections to measure quahog clam shells! Please share! Apply here by March 1: internships.si.edu/opportunity/...

Excited to share our latest paper, new in Science! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We are looking forward to welcoming @brianapobiner.bsky.social for an online only #HEASSeminar in Human Evolution and the Palaeolithic next Monday the 2nd December at the later than normal time of 15:00 CET . Registration is on our website 🔗👇 www.heas.at/events/heas-...

Hello, Bluesky! My name is Ben and I'm an anthropological archaeologist broadly interested in the human settlement of Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Pacific. Happy to be here, and looking forward to watching this platform grow!