Doctoral School PALPROX “Proxies from Small Vertebrates in Prehistoric Archaeology""""

The Doctoral School PALPROX fosters a unique interdisciplinary and collaborative research frame in which the Doctoral Candidates will work on their Individual Research Projects around a common program: The use of small vertebrates as a proxy in Prehistoric Archaeology. We aim to focus on the studies of Late Pleistocene small vertebrates to gain insight into the studied taxonomic groups found in archaeological sites, but also to face the new challenges posed by interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological studies, and their contributions to the debate about climate change and biodiversity loss. Small vertebrates, due to their reduced size, small habitat ranges and in most cases low mobility, are known to be more sensitive to regional changes than large mammals and plants, especially in Europe where mountain ranges and sea barriers block their retreat to the south.In addition, fossil small vertebrates can help to modern conservation biology, providing predictive clues based on long-term biodiversity archives. In general, knowledge of the small vertebrate Quaternary record can help to better understand current extinction dynamics, response to climate changes or ecological turning points.Finally, taking advantage of synergies with other disciplines, fossil small vertebrates studies have incorporated new methodologies such as Geometric Morphometrics, Oxygen Isotope studies or ancient DNA, and introducing Geospatial and MaxEnt tools into the analyses of both fossil and modern specimens. These approaches very much complement, but do not replace, a basal training in the fundamental methods based on osteological and morphometric description.As a result, PALPROX will support promising Doctoral worldwide candidates passionate about interdisciplinary research, supporting the increasing diversity of career paths in Europe’s research landscape and providing fellows with the training, mentoring and career development support needed to become leaders in academia and beyond.