Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser


Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser is a German archaeologist. She is a Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz and Director of the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for human behavioural Evolution of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum at Monrepos Castle in Neuwied, Germany.

Education and career

Gaudzinski-Windheuser studied Pre- and Protohistorical Archaeology, Geology/Palaeontology and Physical Anthropology at several universities in Germany. She received her Doctorate 1992 at Cologne University, Germany and began her academic career as a researcher with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. Between 1996 and 2003 she repeatedly was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Evolution, Systematics and Ecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and taught at the University of Cologne, Basel and Leiden.
In 2003 she was appointed full Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz. In the same year she became Director of the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for the Evolution of Human Behaviour what was then the Forschungsbereich Altsteinzeit.

Scientific work

Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser dedicates her research to the understanding of the evolution of hominin behaviour in the Palaeolithic. Her work is focusing on the evolution of subsistence strategies and their effects on social organisation and landuse. She is best known for her zooarchaeological work on Pleistocene subsistence strategies in Europe and the Levant
Her work demonstrated for the first time the variety of prey exploitation strategies during the Pleistocene and that hominin hunting as a behavioural pattern can be traced back to 1,4 Mio years ago.
Her research makes important contributions to zooarchaeological methodology, taphonomy and archaeological site formation processes.
Furthermore Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser worked on the evolution of settlement behaviour and social interaction in early anatomical modern human societies
She has undertaken fieldwork at the 400.000 year old German site of Kärlich-Seeufer, the 1,4 Mio. year old Israeli site of ‘Ubeidiya and the Middle Palaeolithic Eemian Interglacial site of Neumark-Nord 2.

Selected publications

Books