Niklas Hausmann delivered a guest lecture at the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Crete in Rethymno on 9th December 2016 entitled "Prehistoric coastal exploitation on the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia".
In his lecture Niklas described the outcomes of his PhD thesis that he finished at the University of York last year as a part of the ERC Project DISPERSE. The project aimed to study the dispersal of humans between Africa and Arabia, with a focus on the southern Red Sea as a gateway out of Africa.
Niklas's research is based on excavations on the Holocene shell midden sites on the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia. He carried out a pilot study on the ecology of the marine gastropod Conomurex fasciatus, the main component of the shell middens, to understand the human exploitation of the marine resources. His study used the analysis of growth increments as well as stable oxygen and carbon isotopes of the shell carbonate. The results helped to understand seasonal growth patterns and isotope composition of the shells, which can be applied to seasonal patterns of mollusc consumption and human mobility.
The results of his PhD showed a strong reliance on marine resources and a intense exploitation of C. fasciatus in particular. They also showed that seasonal grouping of shells within midden layers can occur, which can help to further analyse the processes behind shell midden construction. However, this makes it necessary to increase the amount of samples that are analysed per layer, which is time consuming and often too costly.
In the final part of his lecture Niklas presented initial results from his current research project ACCELERATE at the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas in the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser. The project aims to produce seasonal signals from shell carbonate using the rapid technique of elemental analysis, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy. More about the project can be found here.