Caves as Archives of the Past: New Leibniz ScienceCampus in Tübingen

The UNESCO World Heritage Site 'Hohle Fels' will be one of the investigated sites by the new ScienceCampus. At its meeting yesterday, the Senate of the Leibniz Association voted in favor of establishing a new ScienceCampus in. This will create a research network between the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, the University of , and the Max Planck Institute for Biology as well as other national and international institutions. Under the heading -GeoGenomic Archaeology Campus (GACT),- researchers from various scientific disciplines will work together at the new Campus in an innovative and integrative way. The common goal is to use ancient DNA from cave sediments to study human interaction with, and impact on, past ecosystems over time. The oldest traces of human occupation in a cave are around two million years old in Africa. -Early humans lived in caves because they provided easily accessible shelter as well as protection from the elements- explains the spokesperson for the new ScienceCampus, Junior Prof. Cosimo Posth of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of , who submitted the proposal together with Dr. Susan Mentzer, Prof. Christopher Miller, and Prof. Nicholas Conard.