Young Scientist Ambassador Programme

GYA members Bernardo Urbani (Venezuela) and Manuel Fernández-Götz (UK) have been selected to carry out a YSAP virtual mission. They worked on a project on “Sharing views about the past during the pandemic: From archaeoprimatology to conflict archaeology”. Their chosen topic links the research agenda of both applicants, archaeology as the study of the human past through material culture and biological remains. They explored dissimilar but currently relevant topics in the field: the relatively new subdiscipline of archaeoprimatology, on the one hand, and conflict archaeology, on the other. The former examines the liminality between humans and nonhuman primates, or how members of the Primate order interconnected in prehistory, whereas the latter studies the materiality of past conflict (from battlefields to memorials). They conducted a one-day “basic mission” and e-traveling with the purpose of delivering “outgoing-receiving” presentations via Zoom between Venezuela and the United Kingdom. These talks benefited from virtual but factual exposition of ancient archaeoprimatological remains from western Venezuela and conflict remains from Europe ranging from late prehistory to the 20th century. You can watch a short video here.