Eleanor Scerri

Eleanor Scerri is a W2 Professor and Research Group Leader of the Human Palaeosystems Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany. She is also a Reader at the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne and an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Malta, her alma mater.

Dr. Scerri obtained her PhD in Archaeology from the University of Southampton, jointly funded by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Sutasoma Trust. Prior to her current position, she held prestigious fellowships including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, a British Academy Fellowship at the University of Oxford with a Junior Research Fellowship at Jesus College, and a Fyssen Foundation funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bordeaux. She received tenure in 2023 after winning a place on the Lise Meitner Excellence Programme with her 'Pan African Evolution Research Group'.

Her research focuses on exploring the articulation between material culture, genetics, and biogeography to advance theoretical, methodological, and scientific understanding in human evolution and niche expansion. The Human Palaeosystems Group investigates deep time human-environment relationships to understand the dynamics of human bio-cultural evolution and ecosystem change, from the rise of our species until the beginning of agriculture. Her work centers on three key areas: the emergence and expansion of the human niche with its technological societal and ecological feedbacks, disease-culture co-evolution, and island colonization with ecosystem resilience and societal feedbacks. Her approach combines primary fieldwork with a range of modeling approaches using paleoecological and genetic data.

Dr. Scerri's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on human evolution in Africa and Southwest Asia, with particular attention to the Middle Stone Age, lithic technology, and human-environment interactions. Her work frequently addresses the complex population structure of early Homo sapiens in Africa and challenges simple out-of-Africa models, instead supporting structured metapopulation models of human origins. She has made significant contributions to understanding the role of tropical forests in human evolution and the dynamics of island colonization.

• Lise Meitner Excellence Programme (2023)
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship
• British Academy Fellowship
• Fyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship

Dr. Scerri supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Cologne, where she teaches undergraduate courses and supervises Masters projects. She leads several major research projects including the ERC StG funded IslandLab Project, which explores the transition from pristine natural systems to human dominated landscapes on Malta; the Disease-Culture Co-evolution project; and the Pan-African Evolution Project, which involves extensive fieldwork in West Africa investigating the deep human past in this region.

The Human Palaeosystems Research Group conducts fieldwork programs across Africa and the Mediterranean, particularly in West Africa, Arabia, and Malta. The group's approach integrates archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and genetic data to test hypotheses about human evolution and the growth and impact of the human niche. Their work has significantly advanced understanding of human dispersals, population structure in Africa, and the complex evolutionary processes that shaped our species.