José Miguel Tejero
FWF Meitner Program Senior Researcher
ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7888-6951
ID Researcher: A-9818-2017
Scopus: 23971802000
Email: jose.miguel.tejero@univie.ac.at
Short biography
Dr José-Miguel Tejero is an archaeologist who specialised in Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies of Europe and the Levant and their osseous raw material exploitation. He has conducted his doctoral training at several research institutions in France and the USA (Paris X University; Paris 1 Sorbonne University; CNRS; New York University). In 2008 he received a grant from the American Museum of Natural History (New York). He completed his PhD at UNED Madrid University in 2010. Post PhD, he has conducted research in Spain, France, Italy, Israel, Armenia, Georgia, and Austria for ten years, funded through several competitive grants and directed or co-directed several international research projects. He has developed his scientific career in diverse institutions; UNED University, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, University of Barcelona, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris 1 Sorbonne University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Service Archéologique Interdepartamental des Yvelines-Hauts-de-Seine, and the University of Vienna. Since 2021, he has been a senior researcher at the Ancient DNA Genomics and Biological Anthropology Laboratory of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Research interests
José-Miguel Tejero’s current research focuses on bone and antler hunting weapons and their significance in the adaptative environmental strategies of the first Homo sapiens colonising Eurasia. His work also involves the bone equipment of the Western-European societies in the late Upper Palaeolithic (Magdalenian) and the last Levantine hunter-gatherer groups beginning to practice sedentarism (Natufian). Dr Tejero is the research leader of the interdisciplinary and international team for the project to study and publish one of the most critical Near East Natufian sites: Einan–Ain-Mallaha (Jordan Valley, Israel), funded by the Shelby White and Leon Levy Foundation of the Harvard University. He is developing new multidisciplinary research lines combining archaeological and biomolecular cutting-edge methods. His current prime project is based on the integration of archaeological approaches (technology, use-wear, experimentation); palaeogenetics (aDNA: ancient DNA); palaeoproteomics (ZooMS: Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry); and radiocarbon chronology, evaluating critical aspects of the first sapiens osseous hunting weapons in Eurasia.
Selected publications
- Tejero, J.-M., Bar-Oz, G., Meshveliani, T., Jekeli, N., Mastkevich, Z., Pinhasi, R., Belfer-Cohen, A. 2021. New insights on Upper Palaeolithic personal ornaments of the Caucasus. Teeth and bones pendants from Satsurblia and Dzudzuana caves (Imereti. Georgia). PLOS ONE 6 (11): e025897. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0258974
- Tejero., J.-M., Rabinovich, R., Yeshurun, R., Abulafia, T., Bar-Yosef, O. Barzilai, O., Belfer-Cohen, A., Goder-Golberger, M., Hershkovitz, I., Lavi, R., Dhemer, M., Marder, O. 2020. Personal ornaments from Hayonim and Manot caves (Israel) hint to symbolic ties between the Levantine and the European Aurignacian. Journal of Human Evolution 160: 102870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102870
- Tejero, J.-M., Belfer-Cohen, A., Bar-Yosef, O., Gutkin, V., Rabinovich, R. 2018. Symbolic emblems of the Levantine Aurignacians as a regional entity identifier (Hayonim Cave, Lower Galilee, Israel). Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. PNAS USA 201717145.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717145115
- Tejero, J.-M, Yeshurun, R., Marder, O., Barzilai, O., Goder-Golberger, M., Hershkovitz, I., Schneller-Pels, N., Lavi, R. 2016. The osseous industry from Manot Cave (Western Galilee, Israel): technological and conceptual behaviours of bone and antler exploitation in the Levantine Early Upper Palaeolithic. Quaternary International.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.028
- Tejero, J.-M, Grimaldi, S. 2015. Assessing Bone and Antler exploitation at Riparo Mochi (Balzi Rossi, Italy): Implications for the characterization of the Aurignacian in South-western Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 61: 59-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.05.003
Selected projects
- 2022 Assessing the differential DNA preservation in Palaeolithic sediments and osseous tools from museum collections. PIs José-Miguel Tejero and Pere Gelabert (University of Vienna). Funded by the Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS) research network of the University of Vienna (Austria).
- 2021-2023 Assessing Anatomically Modern Human behaviour and social networks in Eurasia through Multidisciplinary Studies of Early Upper Palaeolithic Osseous Hunting Weapons. PI José-Miguel Tejero. Funded by The Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
- 2020-2024 The Natufian site of Eynan – Ain Mallaha (Upper Jordan Valley, Israel). Study and publication of the materials of the excavations from 1996-2005. PI José-Miguel Tejero. Funded by the Shelby-White and Leon Levy Foundation of Harvard University.
- 2020-2021 The technical exploitation of the bone at Einan – Ain-Mallaha (Upper Galilee); Issues to assess by crossing data from the archaeozoology and osseous technology. PI José-Miguel Tejero. Funded by Irene Levi Sala CARE Archaeological Foundation.
- 2016 Anatomically Modern Humans in the Near East. Assessing the hunting weapons on osseous raw material. PI José-Miguel Tejero. Funded by Spanish MECD.