Katerina Douka
CitizenshipGreek
OccupationW2 Group Leader (Archaeology)
SpouseTom Higham[1]
Academic background
Alma materOxford University
ThesisInvestigating the Chronology of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition in Mediterranean Europe by Improved Radiocarbon Dating of Shell Ornaments (2011)
Doctoral advisorRobert E. M. Hedges
Academic work
DisciplineArchaeological Science
Sub-disciplineArchaeology
InstitutionsMax Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Department of Archaeology RLAHA
Websitehttp://www.katerinadouka.com

Katerina Douka is an archaeological scientist whose work focuses on the spatio-temporal pattern of human dispersals and extinctions across Eurasia, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern Homo sapiens.

Education

Douka completed a B.Sc. in archaeological conservation at the Technological University of Athens, Greece in 2004, followed by an M.Sc. in archaeological science at the University of Oxford, U.K. Her Masters dissertation was titled Seasonality of Neanderthal Occupation at Vanguard Cave, Gibraltar. She studied for her PhD at Oxford 2006–2011. Her doctoral research involved developing of a new protocol for screening and dating carbonates using radiocarbon, the CarDS or carbon density separation method. She used this new methodology to date early shell beads from Upper Palaeolithic sites across Eurasia.[2] This work provided a new chronology for the early arrival of modern humans in the Middle East.[3]

Career and research

Following her Phd, Douka held a Junior Research Fellowship at Linacre College, University of Oxford, and a William Golding Junior Research Fellowship at Brasenose College, University of Oxford 2014–2018. During her Linacre fellowship she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the “AHOB3” (Ancient Human Occupation of Britain 3) project funded by the Leverhulme Trust.[4] During her Brasenose fellowship she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher on an ERC funded project “PalaeoChron” (Precision Dating of the Palaeolithic of Eurasia) led by Professor Tom Higham, based at the RLAHA, School of Archaeology. In 2017 she joined the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Department of Archaeology, Jena, Germany, where she is Principal Investigator / Group Leader on the “FINDER” (Fossil Fingerprinting and Identification of new Denisovan remains in Pleistocene Asia) project funded by the European Research Council.[5] She has pioneered the application of the ZooMS technique (Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry) to ancient human fossils, enabling the identification of small fragments of bone on the basis of collagen proteins.[6] Her research has provided important insights into early human migrations, the chronology of Neanderthal extinction in Europe, and the nature and chronology of the Denisovians, another distinct branch of human evolution.[7][8] Her research on early human origins was featured as a research highlight by the European Research Council in 2018, with fellow grantees Tom Higham and Svante Pääbo.[9] She is currently an assistant editor for the journal PNAS.

Selected publication

References

  1. Higham, Tom (2021). The World Before Us. Penguin Random House UK. p. 100. ISBN 9780241989050.
  2. "Team members Katerina Douka". Palaeochron.
  3. "Dating of beads sets new timeline for early humans". Science Daily.
  4. "Dr Katerina Douka". Palaeodeserts Climate Change and Human Evolution in the Arabian Desert.
  5. "Dr Katerina Douka". Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Department of Archaeology.
  6. "The Game-Changing Technique Behind an Amazing New Archaeological Discovery". The Atlantic. 3 October 2018.
  7. "The long road to Denisova Cave". Nature Ecology and Evolution. 30 January 2019.
  8. Zimmer, Carl (30 January 2019). "High Ceilings and a Lovely View: Denisova Cave Was Home to a Lost Branch of Humanity". The New York Times.
  9. "ERC Annual report 2018" (PDF). Europa.
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