Trenton W. Holliday’s Corner of the Web
I am currently an Associate Professor of
Anthropology at 
Tulane
University. As a human
paleontologist and paleo-
anthropologist who specializes in Late Pleistocene human
evolution, my primary research interests lie in the study of
Eurasian Neandertals and the earliest modern humans who
succeed them, in particular the so-called “Cro-Magnons”
associated with early Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian and
Gravettian) industries.
In
recent years, I have focused on the postcranial skeleton
of Neandertals and early modern humans in order to
address questions not only of a phylogenetic nature (i.e.,
those surrounding modern human origins and the potential
role of the Neandertals therein), but also to address adaptive
issues, particularly with regard to cold adaptation, as well as
issues surrounding bone strength, or postcranial “robusticity”,
and its relationship to behavioral shifts in the Late Pleistocene.
I have also been interested in hybridization
among extant
mammalian species and its implications for
the nature of the
interactions between Homo sapiens and H.
neanderthalensis.
To
these ends, I have most recently been working with 
fossil material associated with the Gravettian industry from
both the Czech Republic and Portugal, and in 2002, along
with my doctoral student Vance Hutchinson and colleagues
from the Instituto Português de Arqueologia, I began
excavating a collapsed rock shelter (Abrigo do Alecrim) in
This page is a work in progress! Last modified 28 December 2009