Univ.-Prof. Dr. Tom Higham
Professorship for Natural Science Archaeology at the Faculty of Life Sciences
Contact Tom Higham
Curriculum vitae:
Born 1966 Cambridge, UK
1984-1989 BA (First Class), University of Otago (New Zealand)
1989-1990 MA (Distinction). University of Otago (New Zealand)
1990-1993 D.Phil. University of Waikato (New Zealand)
1994-1996 Post-doctoral scientist, Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato, Hamilton (New Zealand)
1996-2001 Deputy Director, Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato, Hamilton (New Zealand)
2001-2003 Senior Archaeologist, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford (UK)
2003-2018 Deputy Director, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford (UK)
2011-2018 Director, Advanced Studies Centre, Keble College, Oxford (UK)
2018-2021 Director, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford (UK)
Since August 2021 Professor of Scientific Archaeology at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna
Research areas:
* Radiocarbon dating using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)
* Compound-specific radiocarbon sample preparation and pretreatment chemistry
* The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic periods of Eurasia, Neanderthals, Denisovans and anatomically modern humans
* Archaeological chronologies
"People are genuinely interested in the past and answers to the question 'where did we come from?'. My research seeks to better explain this and to build a picture of the late period of human evolution, in particular exploring aspects of the prehistory of Homo sapiens over the last 50,000 years and how we became human." (Tom Higham)