30.10.2025

13:15, Lecture hall C.01

Dr. Pavel Tarasov (Freie Universität Berlin)

Palaeoenvironments and long-term culture change of hunter-gatherers in Northern Eurasia: What do we know and what do we want to know?

Abstract: Since its introduction in 1916, pollen analysis has played a prominent role in a variety of methods used to reconstruct past environments, human economies, and the interactions between them. The introduction of new research methods (sedaDNA, biomarkers, isotopes, climate modelling, etc.) has further strengthened pollen analysis as a team player in multi-proxy interdisciplinary projects. This lecture focuses on Northern Eurasia, which played a key role in the spread of anatomically modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic – a period that was climatically the harshest and most changeable phase of the last ice age.

Vita: Pavel Tarasov is an apl Professor of Quaternary Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include pollen analysis, regional-scale reconstructions of Holocene and Pliocene-Pleistocene plant communities, quantitative pollen-based climate, tree cover and biome reconstructions, human environment interactions, and data-model comparison. His areas of research are Eurasia, from the Atlantic coast to Japan, North Africa and Arctic North America.  During his research career in Germany, he received a visiting scholar award from the University of Alberta (Canada), a Heisenberg Fellowship (DFG), and a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His publication list includes 236 items and over 900 coauthors.

link to webpage

Invited by:  Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr