Dr. Anastasia Nikulina

The Neanderthal Garden: Landscape Engineering and the End of the "Pristine Wilderness" Myth By Seth Chagi World of Paleoanthropology

Nice feature on our recent work on neandertals (led by @nikulinaav.bsky.social) and their effects on their environment👣 deephistory.substack.com/p/the-neande... #neandertal #neanderthal #archaeology #anthropology #wilderness

Snow welcomed my Siberian soul on one of my first days in my new role as a postdoc and project manager at @unileiden.bsky.social Felt like #home ❄️

Over the past year, I worked at Durham University within @sse1k.bsky.social It was a real pleasure to be part of this team! I met wonderful colleagues and made great friends within the Department and the project. A new chapter begins for me this year, but the previous one was amazing💔

Last week I presented at #CAA #UK in Cambridge. It was exciting since these are our first modelling results from the @sse1k.bsky.social project. The presentation went really well, and I’m grateful to the organisers and everyone who made the #conference such a great experience.

Photo credit: CAA UK

Came to Cambridge for a couple of days at CAA-UK 2025. Really looking forward to all the talks and discussions! #research #caa

On November 21, I became Dr. Nikulina. 13 years of study and hard work, including five wonderful years at Leiden University working on my dissertation.
Дальше — больше! More to come! #PhD #PhDLife #research #nextchapterbegins

So happy to see that our work on the earliest #human impact on #landscapes ended up in #Weekendavisen, Denmark’s leading weekly #newspaper 🎉
🔗Read here: www.weekendavisen.dk/ideer/jaeger...

Fascinating new #research by @nikulinaav.bsky.social, who has recently joined @arcdurham.bsky.social. She used an innovative #AI approach to reveal how #Neanderthals shaped Europe's #landscapes. Read her @plosone.org paper:
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
#archaeology @unileiden.bsky.social

📖 "On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared": un article co-écrit par F. Mazier de Geode, qui vient de paraître dans PLOS One
➡️ à lire ici : journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

🔥See our new paper led by @nikulinaav.bsky.social
People shaped Europe’s #ecosystems long before farming
🦣#Megafauna effects on #vegetation openness dropped from 77%→57% bt #Eemian & #Mesolithic
🧑‍🦱Mesolithic people shaped up to 47% of landscapes w Neanderthals affecting 6–14%
doi.org/10.1371/jour...

On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared Recent studies have highlighted evidence of human impact on landscapes dating back to the Late Pleistocene–long before the advent of agriculture. Quantifying the extent of vegetation transformations b...

🔥Before farming, hunter-gatherers already transformed nearly half of Europe’s #landscapes via burning and hunting!
Our new study using an #AI approach shows #Neanderthals began reshaping ecosystems; later foragers continued this process
👉 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
#Paleoecology #Anthropocene

HUMLAND FIRE-IN-THE-HOLE agent-based model HUMLAND Fire-in-the-Hole is a conceptual agent-based model (ABM) designed to explore the ecological and behavioral consequences of fire-driven hunting strategies employed by hunter-gatherers, specific...

How did #Neanderthals use #fire to hunt?🔥
Our new conceptual agent-based #model simulates their fire-driven hunting strategies around the Neumark-Nord site in Germany. Available here 👉 www.comses.net/codebases/86...

Many thanks to all who attended the first talk of our Online Seminar Series yesterday🌟Join us again on 10 November for Prof. Alessandro Fontana’s talk!
🔗 Register: www.tinyurl.com/sse1kseminarsrs

📢 SSE1K Online Seminar Series: People and their Environments in the First Millennium CE
Join us on 14 Oct, 16:00 CEST when Prof. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Austrian Academy of Sciences) will talk
“About volcanoes, icons, solar storms, and toads”
🔗 Register: tinyurl.com/sse1kseminars

Intent on the Paleolithic @ Sidestone Press This collection of papers was compiled in celebration of the remarkable academic career of Professor Wil Roebroeks, who has established himself as one of Europe’s leading figures in Palaeolithic archa...

🚨 New volume online! 🚨
This collection celebrates the outstanding career of Prof. Wil Roebroeks.
🔥 Our paper “Fire in the hole: a prototype agent-based model for studying #hunter-gatherers’ fire-driven #hunting” is part of the volume – take a look! 🐘 www.sidestone.com/books/intent...

Spatiotemporal reconstruction of Corded Ware and Bell Beaker burial rituals reveals complex dynamics divergent from steppe ancestry Chronological modeling shows fast, polyfocal dissemination of Corded Ware and Beaker rites before rapid Pan-European convergence.

New cool study on Corded Ware and Bell Beaker #burials shows fast apread across #Europe in many places at once and not from one big #migration www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Postdoc Job! Come and work with me in Durham, and a bunch of @sse1k.bsky.social heroes in Venice and Basel, doing agent-based modelling of socio-environmental systems in the Ancient Mediterranean...
durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

👋 #MeetTheTeam
@nikulinaav.bsky.social
Anastasia Nikulina is a postdoctoral researcher exploring human–environment interactions through agent-based modelling. She’s based at @arcdurham.bsky.social.
Originally from the real #Siberia, Anastasia knows how (cold) weather shapes #human decisions.

Last week, I had the opportunity to be an invited respondent at @sse1k.bsky.social session on #resilience and the #environment at @imc-leeds.bsky.social in Leeds. My first time in this role! ☺️

A Hot Meal at the Ice Age Shoreline Neanderthals and the Prehistoric Art of Bone Fat Rendering

And a posdcast about it 😉 www.anthropology.net/p/a-hot-meal...

Neanderthal "fat factory"! 🥩🔥
Last Interglacial #Neanderthals at Neumark-Nord (Germany) were fat engineers processing bones to extract grease 125,000 years ago.
A large-scale operation long before the Upper #Paleolithic. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Thank you to everyone who joined our sessions at @imc-leeds.bsky.social! It was a pleasure to discuss different aspects of #environment and #resilience. Huge thanks to the organizers for putting together such a fantastic congress #IMC2025

Attending the International Medieval Congress in Leeds for the first time 😊 #IMC2025

Logo for the project SSE1K: Science, Society and Environmental Change in the First Millennium CE: image is a dark blue circle with interlocking half circles and the initials SSE1K with the project title underneath

Exciting papers at #IMC2025 from @sse1k.bsky.social SSE1K: Science, Society and Environmental Change in the First Millennium CE and friends today!
@nikulinaav.bsky.social @danlawrence86.bsky.social

Looking forward to seeing everyone at @imc-leeds.bsky.social‬ ! 🙌✨ Our three sessions " #Resilience and #Environment in the #Mediterranean" are on July 9🗓️, Clarendon Building 1.02📍

Heading to @imc-leeds.bsky.social‬? Don’t miss our session " #Resilience and #Environment in the #Mediterranean " on
🗓️June 9
⏰10:00–11:30, 12:15–13:45 and 15:15–16:45!

Check out the full programme for the International Medieval Congress here:
🔗 www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/pro...

PhD Candidate: Costs and benefits of wild plants (1.0 FTE, 48 months) PhD Candidate: Costs and benefits of wild plants (1.0 FTE, 48 months)The Department of Archaeological Sciences, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, is looking for a PhD candidate to perform res...

Great PhD opportunity with @phytolith.bsky.social : www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies...

Workshop day organised by @sse1k.bsky.social at Ca' Foscari University of Venice