On 23 May 2022, Viola Schmid and Laura Rembart were awarded the certificates for their Hertha Firnberg positions granted in 2021 at the FWF event »Women in Top-level Research - Honouring and Networking«.
Viola Schmid will conduct research on stone technological developments in the South African Middle Stone Age at the time of Marine Isotope Stage 5 as part of the project »Time of essential changes in human history (TECH)« in the research group »Quaternary Archaeology« of the Department of Prehistory & West Asia/Northeast Africa Archaeology. Stone artefact inventories from three largely synchronous, well-documented sites with chrono-stratigraphic reference sequences, Sibhudu Cave, Bushman Rock Shelter and Rose Cottage Cave, from different biomes with different subsistence conditions, will be comparatively investigated to draw conclusions about inter-regional networking as well as knowledge transfer, innovation emergence and technocultural dynamics in hunter-gatherer societies.
Laura Rembart's project »Still disoverable: A reconsideration of Eastern Sigillata B« ( T 1326 Firnberg Programme ) started on 1 June 2022 and deals with a Roman ceramic ware that was among the most popular tableware in the Eastern Mediterranean from the middle of the 1st century AD. Although the so-called Eastern Sigillata B (ESB) has been known since 1904 and there is a basic typochronology, there are still large research desiderata. These mainly concern production and manufacturing techniques as well as sales markets. The aim of this project is to clarify the still open questions through a comprehensive (re-)investigation of the ESB finds. The project is part of the research group »Object Itineraries« at the Department of Historical Archaeology.