In January 2023, a project jointly funded by the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, the Werner Reimers Foundation, and the Daimler and Benz Foundation was launched for research into the biocultural evolution of Homo sapiens in South East Asia. This project with the title “Microscopy for Chronology: Usewear Analysis and Lithic Technology in Island Southeast Asia”, headed by Dr. Riczar Fuentes from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, is being carried out in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Ottmar Kullmer from the Palaeoanthropology Department of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt.

The study of paleoanthropology at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt was initiated by Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (1902-1982). In addition to his research into the evolution of our human ancestors, his scientific legacy includes an important paleontological and cultural collection comprising hominid fossils and stone tools from the Pleistocene, animal remains from an Indonesian site on the island of Java, along with letters, manuscripts, and many further documents. The new research project, which focuses on early human evolution and paleodiversity, builds on this knowledge. It should also be seen against the background of the “shared culture” discussion. Although the collection is located in Frankfurt, it will be made accessible to the international world of academia.

The current project, involving several cooperation partners, is focusing on the development and use of early stone tools in South East Asia. In 2023, the first year of funding, Dr. Riczar Fuentes collected materials in the course of several research trips to a number of archaeological sites in the Philippines for the purpose of reconstructing the origin of traces of usage on stone tools in laboratory experiments. These were mostly cherts (e.g. flints), with bamboo as a potential contact material. Lumps of chert, found above all at archaeological sites in the Philippines but also throughout South East Asia, were used by our ancestors during the prehistoric eras of the late Pleistocene and Holocene to make so-called chipping tools.

The export of the collected materials to Germany in October marked the beginning of a cooperation with the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) in the Laboratory for Traceology and Controlled Experiments (TraCEr) at Monrepos Castle in Neuwied. Experiments are now being carried out there for the first time in order to develop a digital database for establishing the variability of traces of use on original prehistoric stone tools from South East Asia. This new research approach aims to improve our understanding of the manufacture and usage of chipping tools, and thus to reconstruct and digitally document the behavior, exchange, and distribution of various techniques among early stone tool cultures. The new research project is building on the experience and success achieved by a scientist on an earlier research sojourn (Link).

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