Dr. Yonatan Sahle is a broadly-trained archaeologist. His research interests revolve around understanding behavioral and ecological contexts across the origin of our species; prehistoric hunting technologies; hominin foraging adaptation (esp. carnivory); and ethnographic stone tool use.
Dr. Sahle leads a field project in the Lower Awash Basin (Afar Rift, Ethiopia), where he collaboratively investigates the evolution of hominin paleobiology and adaptive behavior across the later Middle Pleistocene. He has recently discovered hominids as well as faunal and archaeological assemblages that promise unique insights into the evolutionary contexts of the period.
Dr. Sahle is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Evolution and a research group leader at the center.
| Educational Background | |
| 2013 – 2015 | Postdoc, Human Evolution Research Center, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2009 – 2013 | Ph.D. in Archaeology, University of Cape Town |
| 2006 – 2008 | M.A. in Archaeology, Addis Ababa University |
| Field Research Experience | |
| 2016 - present | PI, Megenta West Paleoanthropological Research Project, Afar Rift |
| 2010 – present | Middle Awash Research Project, Afar Rift, Ethiopia |
| 2010 – 2013 | Gademotta Formation, Main Ethiopian Rift |
| 2012 – 2013 | Ledi‑Geraru Research Project, Afar Rift, Ethiopia |
| 2010 | Koobi Fora Field School, East Turkana, Kenya |
| 2010 | Elandsfontein, Western Cape, South Africa |
| 2007 | Mochena Borago Rockshelter, southwestern Ethiopia |
| Research Grants | |
| 2018 | Paleontological Scientific Trust (Post-Ph.D. field research grant) |
| 2015 - 2016 | Leakey Foundation (post-Ph.D. research grant) |
| 2014 | Wenner-Gren Foundation (post-Ph.D. research grant) |
| 2013 | Paleontological Scientific Trust (publication grant) |
| 2012 – 2013 | Wenner-Gren Foundation (dissertation write-up grant) |
| 2010 - 2012 | Paleontological Scientific Trust (fieldwork grants) |
| 2009 – 2012 | Wenner-Gren Foundation (Wadsworth doctoral fellowship grant) |
| Professional Membership | |
| Society of Africanist Archaeologists Society for American Archaeology East African Association of Paleontology & Paleoanthropology |
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| Academic Reviewer | |
| Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports | |
| Quaternary International Journal Paleoanthropology Journal American Antiquity The Leakey Foundation The National Science Foundation of the USA |
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| Papers in Peer-Reviewed Journals | |
| 2019 | Sahle Y, AS Brooks. Assessment of complex projectiles in the early Late Pleistocene at Aduma, Ethiopia. PLOS ONE 14(5), e0216716. |
| Sahle Y, Y Beyene, A Defleaur, B Asfaw, G WoldeGabriel, WK Hart, LE Morgan, PR Renne, J Carlson, TD White. Revisiting Herto: New evidence of Homo sapiens from Herto. In: Modern human origins and dispersal. Sahle et al. (Eds.). Tübingen: Kerns Verlag (pp. 73–104). |
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| Sahle Y, Y Beyene, A Defleaur, B Asfaw, G WoldeGabriel, WK Hart, PR Renne, J Carlson, TD White. Human emergence: Perspectives from Herto, Afar Rift, Ethiopia. In: Modern human origins and dispersal. Sahle et al. (Eds.). Tübingen: Kerns Verlag (pp. 105-136). |
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| Sahle Y, H Reyes-Centeno, C Bentz (Eds). Modern human origins and dispersal: current state of knowledge and future directions. Tübingen: Kerns Verlag. | |
| Sahle Y. Ethnoarchaeology of compound adhesive production and tool hafting: implications from Hadiya (Ethiopia). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 53, 43-50. | |
| Sahle Y. Eastern African Stone Age. Oxford Encyclopedia of Anthropology. DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.53 | |
| 2018 | Sahle Y, H Reyes-Centeno, C Bentz. Modern human origins and dispersal: current state of knowledge and future directions. Evolutionary Anthropology 27: 64-67. |
| Sahle Y, DR Braun. A reply to Douze and Delagnes’s ‘The pattern of emergence of a Middle Stone Age tradition at Gademotta and Kulkuletti (Ethiopia) through convergent tool and point technologies’. J. Hum. Evol. [2016] 91, 93–121. Journal of Human Evolution 125, 201–206. | |
| 2017 | Sahle Y, S El Zaatari, TW White Hominid butchers and biting crocodiles in the African Plio–Pleistocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/10/31/1716317114.full |
| Sahle Y, A Beyin . Archaeological reconnaissance of the Late Pleistocene Red Sea coast in the Danakil (Afar, Ethiopia). Antiquity 91, 1-6. | |
| Shackley M, Y Sahle Geochemical characterization of four Quaternary obsidian sources and provenance of obsidian artifacts from the Middle Stone Age of Gademotta, Main Ethiopian Rift. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 32, 302-310. | |
| 2016 | Sahle Y, A Negash. An ethnographic experiment of endscraper curation rate among Hadiya hideworkers, Ethiopia. Lithic Technology 41, 154-163 DOI:10.1179/2051618515Y.0000000022 |
| 2014 | Sahle Y, LE Morgan, DR Braun, B Atnafu, WK Hutchings. Chronological and behavioral contexts of the earliest Middle Stone Age in the Gademotta Formation, Main Ethiopian Rift. Quaternary International 331: 6-19. |
| 2013 | Sahle Y, WK Hutchings, DR Braun, JC Sealy, LE Morgan, A Negash, B Atnafu. Earliest stone-tipped projectiles from the Ethiopian Rift date to >279,000 years ago. PLoS One. 8(11) e78092. News National Geographic Sciencenews.org |
| 2012 | Sahle Y, A Negash, DR Braun. Variability in ethnographic hidescraper use among the Hadiya of Ethiopia: Implications for reduction analysis. African Archaeological Review 29 (4): 383-397. |
| Gossa T, Y Sahle, A Negash. A reassessment of the Middle and Later Stone Age lithic assemblages from Aladi Springs, Southern Afar Rift, Ethiopia. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 47 (2): 210-222. | |
| 2011 | González-Ruibal A, Y Sahle, XA Villa. A Social Archaeology of colonial war in Ethiopia. World Archaeology 43 (1): 40-56. |
| Published Abstracts, Talks, Documentaries |
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| 2016 | Netflix Original. Into the Inferno. By Werner Herzog. Y Sahle as himself Netflix |
| The Science of Human Evolution in Africa. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium. Washington, DC. | |
| SA Brandt, Y Sahle, H Groucutt (2016). Parting the Red Sea: Late Pleistocene lithic variability and human dispersals in the Horn of Africa and Arabia. The SAA 81st Annual Meeting | |
| Sahle Y, Y Beyene, Late Pleistocene Behaviors: Perspectives from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Abstracts of the SAA 81st Annual Meeting | |
| 2015 | Sahle Y Assessment of projectile use at Aduma (Middle Awash, Ethiopia). Abstracts of the SAA 80th Annual Meeting, sp. 860. |
| 2014 | BBC Two. Human Universe: Apeman–Spaceman (BBC TWO). By Brian Cox. Y Sahle as himself. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0276pc3 |
| Sahle Y, DR Braun, JC Sealy Technological Behavior in the Middle Stone Age of the Gademotta Fm., Ethiopia: Insights from the Levallois method. Abstracts of the SAA 79th Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, p. 659. |
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| M Kay, Sahle Y, J Kappelman, L Todd Ethiopian MSA production chains early and late: Gademotta, Aduma, and Shinfa. Abstracts of the SAA 79th Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, p. 386. | |
| 2011 | Sahle Y, DR Braun The context of early Middle Stone Age occupations in the Main Ethiopian Rift: Renewed excavations at Gademotta. Paleoanthropology Society Meeting Abstracts, Minneapolis, MN. p. A33. |