Rate My Professor Thomas Higham

Thomas Higham is Univ.-Prof. Dr. and Professor of Scientific Archaeology in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna, where he directs the Higham Lab and serves as Director of Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS). He joined the University of Vienna in August 2021 after spending 20 years at the University of Oxford as Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. Earlier in his career, he was Deputy Director of the Waikato Radiocarbon Laboratory at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. His research centers on developing and refining radiocarbon dating methods, with a focus on pretreatment chemistry to remove contaminants from bone collagen samples. These innovations, now used by other laboratories worldwide, enable precise chronological frameworks for Palaeolithic archaeology through Bayesian chronometric modeling.

Higham's work has significantly advanced understanding of human evolution, including the timing of Neanderthal disappearance, the onset of the Early Upper Palaeolithic, and the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa into Eurasia. He has secured two ERC Advanced Grants: PalaeoChron (2013-2019), which investigated Neanderthal extinction and Initial Upper Palaeolithic beginnings, and Disperse (2025-2029), examining Homo sapiens movements via key sites like Ksar Akil in Lebanon. He is the author of the book 'The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of our Human Origins' published by Penguin. Recent key publications include 'Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic' in Nature (2026), 'Molecular and zooarchaeological identification of 5000 year old whale-bone harpoons in coastal Brazil' in Nature Communications (2026), and 'Re-examining the Chronological Framework and Human Occupation Pattern of the North Loess Plateau Using Bayesian Modelling' in Journal of World Prehistory (2025). Higham presented his inaugural lecture at the University of Vienna's Main Ceremonial Hall, overviewing his research on Neanderthals, Denisovans, and early Homo sapiens.