Dr. Shixia Yang granted a Humboldt Research Fellowship to conduct research at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Dr. Yang, whose research areas include Paleolithic East Asia, lithic techniques and raw material sourcing, is a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Shixia Yang, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been granted a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to conduct research at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. This prestigious fellowship will allow Dr. Yang to work at the institute as a postdoctoral researcher for two years, from January 2018 until the end of 2019. Dr. Yang will be working as a member of the Archaeology Department during her time at the Institute.

Dr. Yang’s research focuses on stone tools in Paleolithic East Asia, and she is an expert on stone tool production techniques, raw material sourcing and human adaptation to different environments.

Dr. Yang’s Humboldt project was entitled "Behavioural Adaptions of the Earliest Humans in East Asia." While at the Institute, she will be working on the earliest archaeological sites in China to understand “Out of Africa” migrations and the behavior of these early populations. She is examining stone toolkits and the occupation by early humans of the Nihewan Basin in North China, which is among the most famous Palaeolithic sites in China. 

“I am extremely happy to receive a prestigious Humboldt fellowship, which is a very well-known program in China,” states Dr. Yang. “I am also very pleased to be associated with the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History because of their archaeological research in Asia, which has a central bearing on my own work.”

While here, Dr. Yang will be hosted by Prof. Michael Petraglia. “It is fantastic to have Dr. Shixia Yang here at the Max Planck, as we are working very closely with her and her colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  It is also a great privilege for us to have a Humboldt scholar in Jena,” explains Prof. Petraglia. “We are very excited about our joint archaeological research in China and also by the possibilities for future field work.”