Susanne Krüger

Doctoral student

Thesis

"Meganthropus palaeojavanicus” and potential precursors of Homo in Pleistocene Java

My thesis deals with the ecological approach of range expansion and intends to examine the link between the environment and diet in more detail. The diet of a hominid follows inevitably from the available resources in the environment. The individual selection is reflected in the diet signals, because resources vary in their mechanical and chemical properties. This shows that strong connections exist between habitat, diet composition and the diet signal. These are the starting points for my work. Based on the results of macrowear, microwear and isotopic studies, I intend to apply two methods. The first approach examines the connection between diet composition and diet signal. I would like to compare the results of paleodiet studies with different food resource compositions to determine the composition which could have created the diet signal. The second approach focuses on the relation between the diet signal and the habitat as a resource base. Since the different habitat types provide food resources, which vary correspondingly, a particular diet signal indicates a particular type of habitat. It is therefore possible to draw conclusions from the diet signals on potential habitats. With these approaches I attempt to reconstruct diet and habitat environment of “Meganthropus palaeojavanicus” and Paranthropus boisei.

Education

Magister in Anthropology, Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Zoology

Thesis „Rekonstruktion der Ernährung von Neandertalern“ („Diet reconstruction of Neanderthals“)

Conferences

09/2016 100 + 25 years of Homo erectus: Dmanisi and beyond, Tbilisi, Georgia

09/2016 6th Annual Meeting of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE), Madrid, Spain

02/2016 International Conference on 3rd NECLIME Asian Meeting, Lucknow, India 09/2015 5th Annual Meeting of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE), London, UK

07/2015 International ROCEEH Conference on Human Expansions, Frankfurt/Main, Germany