José-Miguel Tejero

I am an archaeologist specialising in Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies of Europe and the Levant, with a particular focus on the exploitation of osseous raw materials. I completed my doctoral training at several research institutions in France and the United States, including Paris Nanterre University, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, the CNRS, and New York University. In 2008, I was awarded a grant by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and I completed my PhD at UNED (Madrid) in 2010.

Since then, I have conducted research in Spain, France, Italy, Israel, Armenia, Georgia, and Austria, funded through various competitive grants. I have directed or co-directed several international research projects and developed my academic career at institutions such as UNED, the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, the University of Barcelona, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Vienna.

From 2021 to 2023, I worked as a senior researcher at the Ancient DNA Genomics and Biological Anthropology Laboratory, within the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. I am currently a Ramón y Cajal senior researcher at the University of Barcelona.

My current research focuses on bone and antler hunting weapons and their role in the adaptive strategies of the first Homo sapiens groups colonising Eurasia. I also study the osseous equipment of late Upper Palaeolithic societies in Western Europe (Magdalenian) and of the last Levantine hunter-gatherers transitioning toward sedentarism (Natufian). I lead an international and interdisciplinary research team dedicated to the study and publication of one of the key Natufian sites in the Near East: Einan–Ain-Mallaha (Jordan Valley, Israel), funded by the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program of Harvard University. My work integrates archaeological and biomolecular methods—technology, use-wear, experimentation, ancient DNA, palaeoproteomics (ZooMS), and radiocarbon dating—to explore the emergence and evolution of osseous hunting weapons used by early modern humans. One of my current projects also involves the excavation and study of a high-altitude site (over 4,000 m) in the Peruvian Andean puna, aimed at evaluating and contextualising the biological and cultural adaptations of the first human groups in this extreme environment.