Michael Toffolo (Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, CENIEH) has obtained an ERC Starting Grant 2021. His project PEOPLE (PalaeoEcology and OPen-LandscapE adaptations of Pleistocene humans in South Africa) will determine whether freshwater availability had key selective pressure on the evolution, ecology, and dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) in the semi-arid interior of South Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene.
Michael is an Italian archaeologist interested in the evolution of Homo sapiens in southern Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. His research focuses on the reconstruction of site formation processes and palaeoenvironments based on the study of the microscopic archaeological record to better understand human dispersal and adaptation strategies.
He obtained his BA (2006) and MA (2009) in Archaeology from the University of Padua (Italy). An exchange programme at Boston University (USA) in 2008 bolstered his analytical proficiency. He obtained his PhD (2014) in Archaeology from Tel Aviv University (Israel) in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), where he was Visiting PhD student. His university years were dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge and analytical skills grounded in the natural sciences and their application to the study of the archaeological record.
In 2014 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Museum Bloemfontein (South Africa); in 2015-2016 he was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tübingen (Germany); and between 2017 and 2021 he was Junior Research Chair IdEx at Bordeaux Montaigne University (France). He will soon start a new appointment as Researcher at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) in Burgos, Spain.
Which are the main objectives of PEOPLE?
It is well known that AMH emerged in Africa. Thanks to their remarkable ecological flexibility, humans quickly reached Asia and Europe. However, how and when did AMH disperse within Africa, before leaving the continent? We know surprisingly little about the timing and modes of this process because the known archaeological and fossil record is quite fragmentary and relatively small compared to the extent of the continent. Several outstanding questions need to be addressed if we want to piece together our evolutionary history. When did AMH groups disperse in different parts of Africa? How did they interact? Climate change and its impact on ecosystems have often been considered one of the driving factors in human evolution. Therefore, what is the role of changing environments in this process? How did people adapt to local environmental variability in the Middle and Late Pleistocene?
Before addressing Africa as a whole, these questions should be asked at the subcontinental or regional level. To answer them, we must constrict the research focus to take into account Africa’s huge ecological variability in space and time. It is necessary to start from the basics and look at different ecosystems in limited portions of the continent, which can offer ways of assessing human response to climate change during the Pleistocene; these ecosystems can then be linked to reconstructing human expansion at a larger scale.
One key factor affecting human response to Pleistocene environmental variability is the availability of freshwater, as it sustains not only human beings, but also the plants and animals that constitute their diet. The continuous processes of change between the extremes of glacial and interglacial periods throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene constantly reshaped the landscape and the spatiotemporal distribution of resources, including freshwater. Therefore, the location of springs, lakes, and rivers may have had a pervasive influence on both local behaviours and spatial distribution of human groups (e.g., the foraging activities of hunter-gatherers in the open landscape), and on their migration throughout Africa.
The project “PalaeoEcology and OPen-LandscapE adaptations of Pleistocene humans in South Africa” (PEOPLE) aims at determining whether freshwater availability had key selective pressure on the evolution, ecology, and dispersal of AMH in the semi-arid interior of South Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. PEOPLE will focus on the grasslands and shrublands of the Free State Province, a region dissected by sporadic rivers and punctuated by springs and seasonally dry lakes, and which is characterised by high ecotonal variability and natural exposures offering a fortunate view of past environmental change.
With the support of the extensive laboratory facilities at the CENIEH, and in collaboration with scientists in South Africa, USA, and Germany, PEOPLE will use a multi-scalar geoarchaeological approach to search and study river and wetland deposits, which will provide the necessary context to environmental proxies, artefacts, and chronology. These in turn will allow linking different environmental records and thus determine the role of water and changing environments in the adaptive strategies of AMH, establish a chronology for human occupations, and ultimately understand how and when people settled in the central interior of South Africa.
Why did you decide to carry out your research at the CENIEH?
In the past, I studied and worked at institutions interested in developing new methods in archaeological science with the aim of applying them to the entire timeline and cultural spectrum of the human past. For the ERC project, I wanted to move to a research institution with a strong natural science component but focused on the study of human evolution. The CENIEH is one of the very few institutions in Europe that matches the description. The vast array of analytical methods and expertise available in one building (instead of many different departments) is a huge advantage that allows saving a considerable amount of time and resources.
How do you expect this grant will affect your professional career?
The Starting Grant will allow me to buy equipment and implement an interdisciplinary geoarchaeological approach that will be relevant for the investigation of other regions, other periods, and even other human species. Furthermore, I will consolidate the expertise that I gained in the past seven years of work in the Free State, and I will be able to establish my own research group at the CENIEH. This grant also provides me with the necessary funds to publish all of my research in open access form and thus reach scientists who are blocked by paywalls, and the larger public in general.
Are you planning to open research positions in your group?
I will advertise a postdoctoral contract to conduct surveys in South Africa and a pre-doctoral contract to study the geoarchaeology of the sites that we will discover. Other positions may open at a later stage.
Are you planning any collaborations?
PEOPLE will be carried out in collaboration with the National Museum Bloemfontein, the University of the Free State (both located in South Africa), and Texas State University (USA) with regard to fieldwork and part of the laboratory analyses. Additional laboratory analyses will be performed at Kiel University (Germany).
Where can we learn more about you and your project?
Twitter: @MichaelToffolo
The PEOPLE website and Twitter account will be up and running starting from September 2022.
Selected publications
Human occupation of the semi-arid grasslands of South Africa during MIS 4: New archaeological and paleoecological evidence from Lovedale, Free State. Wroth K., Tribolo C., Bousman C. B., et. al., Quaternary Science Reviews 283, 107455 (2022)
A microstratigraphic reevaluation of the Florisbad spring site, Free State Province (South Africa): formation processes and paleoenvironment. Toffolo M. B., Brink J. S., van Huyssteen C., Berna F., 2017. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 32 (4), 456-478 (2017)
During the following weeks, we will be presenting those researchers working at Spanish institutions that have obtained an ERC Starting or Consolidator Grant 2021 and their projects. You can check their profiles HERE.
