The Research Team
Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo
manueldr@ghis.ucm.es
Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo is co-director of the IDEA and professor of the Area of Prehistory in the Department of History and Philosophy of the Alcalá University.
He has been co-director of the paleoanthropological projects of Peninj (Lago Natron) (1995-2005), Eyasi (2002-2006) and, currently, of the Olduvai Gorge (2006-present). He has participated as a guest researcher in the projects of Gona (Ethiopia) and Swartkrans (South Africa). He has published 8 books and more than 200 impact articles.
He has been guest professor and researcher at the Universities of Harvard, Rutgers and St. Louis and the Royal Complutense College in Harvard (USA). His specialties are taphonomy and paleoanthropology.
He is a pioneer in the application of high computing tools, such as algorithms of “machine learning” and “deep learning” or “computer vision” to the world of paleoanthropology. He is currently co-director of TOPPP.
Enrique Baquedano
enrique.baquedano@madrid.org
Enrique Baquedano is co-director of the IDEA and director of the Regional Archaeological Museum.
He is also co-director of TOPPP and the excavations of the Neanderthal site of Pinilla del Valle (Madrid).
His doctoral research work focused on taphonomic and historiographic topics. He is a visiting professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares.
He has published several impact articles and is an expert in disseminating heritage through a large number of exhibitions.
He is the architect of the permanent exhibitions of the Regional Archaeological Museum of Madrid and the museums of Olduvai and the National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).
Alfredo Pérez- González
Alfredo Pérez-González is Ph.D in Geological Science and M.Sc. by the Complutense University of Madrid. He worked in the Geological Survey of Spain as Project manager of the Geological map. He was Associate professor in Mining Engineering Polytechnic University of Madrid and Professor of Geomorphology in the Zaragoza University and Complutense University.
He has worked extensively in early and middle Palaeolitic sites in Spain and África working on physical archaeological landscape, fluvial, karstic, aeolian deposits and soils. More recently, he has been Director of the Centro Naconal sobre Investigación Humana ( CENIEH, Burgos)
He is the author of a large number of scientific articles, technical reports and monographs in international and national journals
Yonatan Sahle
Manuel Santonja
Manuel Santonja has a University degree and PhD in Geography and History (University of Salamanca and Complutense University). Postgraduate training at the Institut du Quaternaire de Bordeaux with F. Bordes and Cl. Thibault. He has been Professor of Prehistory at the Complutense University (1974-75), curator at the National Archaeological Museum (1975-76) and Regional Archaeological Museum of Madrid (2003 2009), as well as director (1977-2003) of the museums of Palencia and Salamanca.
He has directed investigations in numerous Spanish Palaeolithic sites (among others Áridos, Pinedo, La Maya, El Sartalejo, Ambrona, Torralba, Cuesta de la Bajada, Porto Maior and Gándaras de Budiño), and Thiongo Korongo (Olduvai, Tanzania).
Vice-president (1990-2) and president (1993-1997) of the Spanish Quaternary Association. Since 2009, Research Professor at CENIEH and director of the Research Unit of Castilla y León 182, with activities focused on the Palaeolithic of the Iberian Peninsula.
Javier Trueba
Javier Trueba is Director and producer of documentaries specialized in nature and scientific cinema. His work has been carried out in 40 countries with productions in film, video, 3D, 360 and animation formats for television programs and for cultural and audiovisual institutions in museums around the world.
As a photographer he has published hundreds of reports in magazines and newspapers around the world such as NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, SCIENCE, NATURE, PNAS, ARCHAEOLOGY, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, DISCOVERING ARCHAEOLOGY, FOCUS, GEO, PARIS MACH, LA RECHERCHE, and has collaborated on dozens of books.
He is currently collaborating in the excavations of Olduvai, Atapuerca, Djehuty, Pinilla del Valle and Mercedes Fragate, and with the Dinópolis research team and the crystallographic studies laboratory.
David Uribelarrea del Val
daviduribelarrea@gmail.com
David Uribelarrea del Val is a Geoarchaeologist and associate Professor in the Department of Geodynamics, Stratigraphy and Paleontology (GEODESPAL) at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).
He teaches in the Degrees of Geology and Biology, in subjects such as Geomorphology, External Geodynamics, Environmental Geology and Applied Geology to Biology. He has also taught classes in the Master of Archeometry at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Master’s Degree in Prehistoric Archeology at the Complutense University of Madrid.
He has participated in numerous research projects as a geoarchaeologist in sites in Spain (Toledo, Ciudad Real, Córdoba, Madrid), in Tanzania (Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli) and in Iraq (Erbil). He is currently the senior geologist of the research team “The Olduvai Paleontology and Paleoecology Project (TOPPP)”.
His main line of research focuses on the geomorphological reconstruction of landscapes in open environments that contain archaeological sites.
His work, therefore, includes sedimentary and quaternary stratigraphic records, external processes that are contemporary with human settlements and the geomorphology of paleosurfaces within the deposits.
Elia Organista Labrado
eliaorganista77@gmail.com
Elia Organista Labrado has a PhD in Prehistory from the Complutense University (2017) with the thesis titled “Taphonomic study of the archaeological levels at Bell Korongo (BK), Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania”
From 2012 she is member of The Olduvai Paleontology and Paleoecology Project (TOPPP), where besides the archaeological and taphonomic works she applies 3D modeling and photogrammetry technique to document the paleosurfaces of Olduvai Gorge sites.
Actually, she is a postdoctoral researcher of The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) in the Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory of the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies (Stockholm University), where she directs the project “The behavior of early Homo: Archaeological and taphonomic studies of the PhillipsTobias Korongo site, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania”.
Her interest is the socio-economic behavior of the first hominins beings and their interaction with the environment. A central part of her research is the taphonomic spatial analysis of materials and the sites formation processes. She combines archaeological work with the actualistic study of bone modification by modern carnivores.
Rebeca Barba Egido
rbarbaegido@yahoo.es
Rebeca Barba Egido has a B.A. in History (2000), Complutense University, M.A. in Prehistory and Archaeology (2002) and defense of PhD thesis titled “Taphonomic study of the Lower Pleistocene archaeological sites of Bed I, Olduvai Gorge, and Humbu Formation of Peninj, Tanzania” approved with High Honors and awarded the Extraordinary Prize of Doctorate of the Complutense University (2006).
She was Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology and Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard during 2007-2009, and Associate Researcher at the Institute of Evolution in Africa and TOPPP member from 2006.
Her research focuses on the early human behavior and the study of the early Homo subsistence strategies, based on faunal collections analysis.
As a zooarchaeologist and taphonomist focusing on African faunas, she has participated in research projects in Olduvai Gorge, Lake Natron and Lake Eyasi since 2004
Raquel Rojas- Mendoza
Raquel Rojas-Mendoza has Graduated in Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the “Escuela Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales” of Madrid (1999).
Specialized in stone tool technical drawings. Since 2004 she has been the restorer – responsible for several outstanding Palaeolithic sites in the Iberian Peninsula (Cuesta de la Bajada in Teruel, Ambrona and Torralba in Soria).
In 2010 she joined TOPPP and she is part of the excavation team of Thiongo Korongo and other sites in the Olduvai Gorge.
Fernando Diez-Martín
Fernando Diez-Martín is professor at the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology and Director of the Chair of African Studies of the University of Valladolid (Spain).
He has been post-doctoral research fellow at CRAFT Research Center, Indiana University (2000-2002) and at The University of the Basque Country (2003- 2005).
He has pioneered a distributional approach for the study of the Palaeolithic settlement in the river Duero basin plateaus (1996-2005) and conducted research in the Neanderthal site of Corazón Cave (2005-2007), both in Spain.
He has participated in the Tanzanian Lake Natron (2004-2005) and Eyasi (2005-2006) projects. Member of TOPPP since 2006, he is currently PI of the SHK and FLK West sites at Olduvai Gorge and, since 2007, PI of the Peninj Research Project.
His main research interests include lithic technology, landscape archaeology and the history of palaeoanthropology.
Joaquín Panera
Joaquín Panera is Doctor in Prehistory and researcher at Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH). His speciality is the study of the technologic strategies and economy of raw materials, together with the identification of anthropic activities carried out in Palaeolithic sites, in order to provide interpretative frames for the evolution of the behaviour patterns of human groups older than our species.
He is currently co-directing research projects at the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), Ambrona and Torralba (Soria), as well as at the rivers Manzanares and Jarama valleys in Madrid. He is also a researcher in several projects of East Africa (Melka Kunture, Ethiopia) and the Iberian Peninsula (Middle stretch of the Tagus valley, Cuesta de la Bajada in Teruel, El Sotillo in Ciudad Real).
As for scientific dissemination, he has taken part in publications related to the Palaeolithic, and he has also coordinated and curated exhibitions in several archaeological museums.
Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo
ajrh78@gmail.com
Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo has a Degree in History, Erasmus Mundus Master in Quaternary Archeology and Doctor in Prehistory with international mention by the Rovira i Virgili University.
His doctoral thesis was approved with an Extraordinary Doctorate Award and two international awards, the Student Poster Award from the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution and the Tübingen Research Prize in Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology (2016).
He is currently a postdoctoral researcher Juan de la Cierva of the Complutense University of Madrid.
Member of the Research Team of Atapuerca since 2003. His research focuses on human behavior in the past, with special interest in the evolution of strategies, tactics and techniques developed for subsistence inferred from the faunal record. The Lower Paleolithic is his main focus, but he also works on other periods of Prehistory, as well as theoretical and methodological investigations on bone modifications, with special emphasis on experimental taphonomy and cannibalism.
Hiss fieldwork focuses on North Africa (east of Morocco) and the Iberian Peninsula (Atapuerca), although he has begun to collaborate with TOPPP in the excavations of Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania).
David Manuel Martín Perea
davidmam@ucm.es
David Manuel Martín Perea is a Geologist and Palaeontologist specialized in Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Vertebrate Taphonomy and Geoarchaeology, with keen interest in Cenozoic vertebrate sites, both archaeological and paleontological.
His greatest interest as a researcher is the symbiosis between Taphonomy and Geoarchaeology, since the combination of these two disciplines provides excellent tools to analyse site formation.
He is interested in the use of modern field techniques along with classical geological field techniques, with GIS and 3D modelling of the data recovered.
He is currently working at the National Natural Sciences Museum – CSIC, analysing the fossil remains of two of the Batallones Butte Miocene sites (Madrid, Spain), combining geology and taphonomy for his PhD under supervision of Jorge Morales and M. Soledad Domingo.
He is also involved as a geoarchaeologist in Pleistocene archaeological sites in Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), Nasera Soit (Tanzania) and Calvero de la Higuera sites (Spain).
Feel free to follow his research and adventures on ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram!
Susana Rubio
Susana Rubio-Jara holds a BA in Geography and History. Speciality Prehistory, from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and a Doctorate (PhD) in Geography and History from U.N.E.D. Since 2017, she is a researcher at Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH).
Her research is focused on Palaeolithic sites from the Iberian Peninsula (Torralba and Ambrona in Soria, Cuesta de la Bajada in Teruel, El Sotillo in Ciudad Real, Valdocarros, PRERESA and Los Estragales in Madrid), and from East Africa (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania).
She studies the nature, entity and coexistence of the Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic techno-complexes in Europe, as well as the relationship between the African and the Iberian Peninsula Acheulean through the techno-economical analysis of lithic industries and the functionality of sites. She has published several papers and curated exhibitions about the Palaeolithic in different museums.
Policarpo Sánchez
Policarpo Sánchez is currently postdoctoral researcher at the University of Valladolid (Spain). He has also been postdoctoral researcher at the Tel Aviv University (Israel) and visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is a research member of TOPPP (Tanzania) and “Peninj Research Project” (Tanzania) since 2008. He is PI of the “Cueva Corazón Archaeological Project” (Spain) and “Middle Arlanza Palaeolithic Project” (Spain).
His most prominent research interests are cultural and economic changes during the major Palaeolithic transitions. Specifically, he is focused on how and why socio-economic structures of Palaeolithic hunter-gathered decline while other emerge. In his research, he develops an original technological approach in studying stone tools, integrating different analysis: economical, mechanical, ergonomical, functional, geometrical-morphometrical, and experimental. The outcomes
of his research are published in high-ranking international peer-review journals.
Follow his research and projects in ResearchGate, Google Scholar and Facebook (Arlanza
Territorio Paleolítico).
Patricia Bello
Patricia Bello Alonso received a bachelor´s degree in History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Then, she completed his master in Prehistoric Archaeology at University of Cantabria. Currently, she is working in her PhD on use wear analyses of lithic industry recovered from the Acheulean archaeological site of Thiongo Korongo (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania).
Moreover, she is also studying other Lower Palaeolithic materials recovered from Bois de Riquet (France), Ambrona (Spain), Cuesta de la Bajada (Spain), El Sotillo (Spain), Ubeidiya (Israel) and Gesher Benot Ya´aqov (Israel).
José-Manuel Maíllo-Fernández
jlmaillo@geo.uned
José-Manuel Maíllo-Fernández is a Professor of the Department of Prehistory and Archeology of the UNED (Madrid) and is a specialist on lithic technology of the Paleolithic, especially of the Middle Stone Age and the origin of the material culture of Homo sapiens.
He has collaborated in research projects in the Fezzan region in Libya and the lakes Nakuru and Turkana in Kenya and since 2016 leads the research on the Middle Stone Age in the Olduvai Gorge and the North of Tanzania.
Lucía Cobo-Sánchez
cobosanchez.lucia@gmail.com
Lucía Cobo-Sánchez completed a master’s degree in Human Evolution Studies at the University of Cambridge after graduating in Archeology from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Her interest as a researcher is the evolution of human behavior and her area of study is Paleolithic Archeology. She is a specialist in taphonomy, zooarchaeology and spatial analysis.
She is currently analyzing the fossil assemblage recovered from an early Pleistocene anthropic site in the Olduvai Gorge (David’s Site, 1.8 Ma) as a doctoral thesis. This site offers the great opportunity to explore the behavioral transformations that gave rise to the genus Homo.
Through the application of various statistical techniques to both the taphonomic study and the spatial study, she also hopes to be able to find answers to questions related to the social organization of these groups of hominins. You can follow her research in ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Linkedin and Twitter.
Marina Vegara-Riquelme
marina.vegara.riquelme@gmail.com
Marina Vegara-Riquelme has a degree in History from the University of Murcia (2012-2016) and a master´s degree in Human Evolution from the University of Burgos, University of Alcala de Henares and Complutense University of Madrid (2016-2017). During the same period, she completed her studies in the Leadership Program at the School of Leadership from Francisco de Vitoria University and Santander Group (2012-2017).
She received the Extraordinary Degree Award and the Extraordinary Master´s Degree Award. Since 2014, she has participated in the excavations carried out in Pinilla del Valle sites and starting in 2018 in the excavations of Olduvai Gorge under the direction of the TOPPP research team.
She is currently enjoying an FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (2019-2023) in the Department of History and Philosophy of the University of Alcala de Henares. For her PhD she conducts research on the taphonomy of the hominins discovered at Olduvai Gorge.
Eduardo Méndez Quintas
Eduardo Méndez Quintas is a Doctor in Human Evolution, Quaternary Paleoecology and Applied Geophysical Techniques.
He focuses his research on the technological aspects of the Acheulean industries of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene of the Iberian Peninsula and Africa, as well as on the analysis of the formation processes that affect these deposits.
He carries out research in different peninsular Acheulean sites, especially in the Miño river basin, where he is a researcher of the project “Minho / Miño. Ocupações Pleistocénicas do Baixo Minho “and has directed excavations at sites such as Arbo, Porto Maior or Gándaras de Budiño.
He participates in various East African projects such as Melka Kunture (Ethiopia) and since 2018 in Olduvai Gorge, as a member of TOPPP.
Lucia Hernández
Lucia Hernández has a degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the Complutense University of Madrid (2011-2015). She has a master´s degree in Prehistory from the Complutense University (2015-2016).
Since 2012, she has participated in the excavations carried out in Pinilla del Valle site and since 2018 in the excavations carried out in Olduvai Gorge under the direction of the TOPPP research team working as a conservator.
Currently she works at the Regional Archaeological Museum as a conservator and preparator of archaeological materials of Des-cubierta cave (Pinilla del Valle).
Abel Moclán
abelmoclan@gmail.com
Abel Moclán has a degree in Archaeology from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (2010 – 2014), and a master’s degree in Quaternary Archaeology and Human Evolution from the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona, Spain (2014 – 2016) with an Extraordinary Award for Outstanding Performance.
He dedicates his research to understanding the evolution of the subsistence strategies during the Palaeolithic. He is currently a Ph.D student at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain (2018 – 2022) and he is researching about the European Middle Palaeolithic subsistence strategies of the transition from the Middle Pleistocene to the Upper Pleistocene in the Iberian Peninsula from a zooarchaeological and taphonomic point of view.
He is also interested in the development of neo-taphonomic studies in order to improve the knowledge about the formation of anthropogenic faunal assemblages.
Since 2018 he collaborates in the archaeological excavations carried out by the TOPPP
Research Team in the Bed II sites in Olduvai Gorge.
Javier Duque
Javier Duque has a degree in History from the University of Valladolid (2007-2012), and a Master diploma in Quaternary: Environmental Change and Human Ecological Impact from the University of the Basque Country (2013). He is involved in the study of the Early Acheulean in East Africa from an integrative approach that includes technological and morpho potential analyses.
Moreover, he is interested in the use of new technologies applied to the lithic record with 3D laser scanner techniques.
Since 2013, he has participated in the excavations carried out in Olduvai Gorge under the direction of the TOPPP research team. One year later, in 2014, he joined the Peninj Research Project working in the Lake Natron sites (Tanzania).
Santiago David Domínguez-Solera
Santiago David Domínguez-Solera is Doctor in History and Archeology. Director of the company ARES Archeology and Cultural Heritage. Director of multiple archaeological projects, ranging from the Early Paleolithic to the Contemporary Age. Specialist in Zooarchaeology, Experimental Archeology and Ethnoarchaeology of hunter gatherer.
He has studied communities of Inuit (Greenland), Ayoreo (Paraguay) and San (Botswana) during several ethnoarchaeological campaigns, generating books, articles and documentaries in this regard.
Cristina Fraile
Cristina Fraile is currently a doctoral researcher in Prehistory at the University of Valladolid. She has a degree in History from the same institution and a master & degree from the University of the Basque Country on Quaternary, Environmental changes and human impact.
Since 2012 she is involved in the archaeological excavations and research projects undertaken by TOPPP at Olduvai Gorge. Her scientific interests focus on the archaeo stratigraphic and intra-site spatial analyses of several sites in Bed II.
Gabriel Cifuentes-Alcobendas
Gabriel Cifuentes-Alcobendas obtained his Bachelor in Archaeology at the Complutense University of Madrid (2014 2018), for which he obtained the Extraordinary Degree Award (2019). He is actually doing the MSc in Material Culture and Experimental Archaeology at the University of York (United Kingdom).
He is interested in the using new technologies of documentation and analysis of the archaeological record to obtain a more precise and unequivocal information about past processes. He is also understanding Experimental Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology as the basis to correctly interpret past human behaviour.
His research now focuses on developing new computing tools based on Computer Vision and Deep Learning algorithms. These tools will be applied to the study and classification of taphonomically produced bone surface modifications appearing in the bone record of archaeological sites.
Besides, he has also collaborated with the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) and the National Centre for the Study of Human Evolution (CENIEH), where he applied new terrestrial and aerial techniques to document excavation process, with special emphasis in 3D modelling and photogrammetry.
He joined the Institute of Evolution in Africa (IDEA) in 2018, and he has taken part in the excavations at Olduvai Gorge archaeological sites since 2019. You can follow his research in ResearchGate and Facebook.
Natalia Abellán Beltrán
Natalia is graduated in Archaeology at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, having studied during one year in University of Crete (Greece). Her bachelor thesis was about the application of Artificial Intelligence algorithms to the recognition of tooth marks in bone surfaces.
She has participated in many fieldworks and excavations, such as Pinilla del Valle (Madrid), Ambrona (Soria) or Grotta dei Santi (Toscana, Italy), all of them included in the Paleolithic Period.
Currently studying a research master in Artificial Intelligence at UNED, with the goal of opening this field of study to Archaeology and Taphonomy, changing the model of analysis of archaeological assemblages.
In the future, the intention is to compare the results of Artificial Intelligence analysis to those of traditional taphonomic studies.
Marcos Pizarro Monzó
Marcos Pizarro Monzó has a degree in Archaeology from the Complutense University of Madrid (2015-2019). He is currently studying a master’s degree in Human Evolution at the University of Burgos.
He is interested in the application of modern techniques for the study of human evolution and experimental taphonomy. He is currently working on statistical analysis of cut marks subjected to post-depositional factors to understand the formation of archaeological sites and provide solutions to the problems proposed by neo-taphonomy.
Since 2016 he has participated in several archaeological excavations of the Middle and Late Pleistocene directed by IPHES and CENIEH.
Blanca Jiménez-García
Blanca Jiménez-García was awarded a degree in Archeology from the Complutense University of Madrid (2019) and is currently pursuing a master’s degree (MRes) in Artificial Intelligence at the UNED.
Her current research focuses on the implementation of deep learning algorithms and convolutional neural networks to bone surface modifications to identify and differentiate between different felid tooth marks.
Since 2016, Blanca has established collaborations with a number of archaeological teams including, but not limited to, Pinilla del Valle (Madrid), Bolomor (Valencia), Atapuerca (Burgos) or Le Moustier (France).
