This research is intended to lead to a better understanding of the interactions and feedbacks between the geo- and biosphere in shallow-water settings, and to answer the question how early Eocene benthic ecosystems respond to environmental changes during periods of rapid global warming.

PhD project by Elodie-Laure Jimenez at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, on the different aspects of human and faunal occupation in North-West Europe at the end of MIS 3, by studying migrations and seasonality.

The aim of the project is to approach the concepts of regionality and sustainability in four ancient regions, Pisidia, Boeotia, Picenum and NW Gaul, from 1000 BC to 1000 AD, through the interdisciplinary study of long-term waves of regional change and development in a comparative framework.

Our aim is to contribute to a comprehensive study of depositional sedimentary environments, their evolution and the human interaction within the region. Regarding the latter topic it is our aim to detect how settlement patterns changed in relation to changing sea-level, shoreline displacements and to changing watercourses.

This project aims the reconstruction of climatic and environmental variability during the Eemian period, based on an intercomparison of marine carbonate bivalves from coastal sedimentary cores and independently dated calcite speleothems.

The objective of this project is to investigate the high diversity of morphologies and sizes among fossil and modern sperm whale lineages in order to reconstruct the evolution of their predation modes, prey types and habitats - and to define the potential triggers of the main ecological shifts.

Doctoral thesis by Katrien Van de Vijver at the Faculty of Sciences KU Leuven on the human skeletons found in the St.Romboutscemetery in Mechelen, dated between the 11th and 18th centuries AD.

Through archaeozoological analyses the project aims at demonstrating that possible pathways to food production, resulting in the rise of complex societies and probably the most important development in human history, are very diverse and that the models from Eurasia are not valid in Africa. The role of the natural environment is thereby tested.