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Eduardo Paixão, archaeologist

Reading the tracesleft on stone.

  1. Every stone tool carries a record of how it was used.
  2. Under the microscope, its surface becomes a landscape of grains, polish and striations.
  3. Measured in three dimensions, those traces tell us which gestures and materials shaped them.

I study stone tools to understand how early humans lived, worked and made decisions, from the Early Paleolithic of Eastern Africa to the Levant and Iberia.

Eduardo Paixão

I'm an archaeologist at ICArEHB, the Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour at the University of Algarve, Portugal, where I coordinate the research theme “Dynamics of Paleolithic People in Eurasia”. I also work with the Laboratory for Traceology and Controlled Experiments (TraCEr) at MONREPOS, LEIZA, in Germany.

My research focuses on functional analyses of stone tools as a bridge to explore the dynamics and behaviours of prehistory, and on the development of new analytical approaches.

  1. 2021PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology, magna cum laude
    Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
  2. 2014Master’s in Archaeology
    University of Algarve
  3. 2012Degree in Archaeology
    University of Algarve

Three ways into the past.

Past human dynamics

  • Early Paleolithic in Eastern Africa
  • Middle Paleolithic in the Levant
  • Paleolithic in the Iberian Peninsula

Experiments

  • Development of new experimental setups
  • Mechanized experiments
  • Robotics

Analytical methods

  • Lithic analyses
  • Use-wear analyses
  • 3D quantification methods

Research projects

See all projects

Melka Wakena

Southeastern Ethiopian Highlands
~1.6 to >0.7 million years ago

Karabakh Palaeolithic Project

Azykh Cave and the Shusha region, Lesser Caucasus
Lower and Middle Palaeolithic

Ground stone tools in the Levant

Nesher Ramla, Far‘ah II and Ein Qashish, Israel
Middle Paleolithic

EcoPLis

River Lis basin, Portugal
Earliest human presence to the end of Prehistory

LEIZA Publications

Groundbreaking Technologies in the Middle Paleolithic of the Levant

A high-resolution functional study of Middle Paleolithic ground stone tools from the Levant, combining controlled experiments, macro and microscopic use-wear analysis and 3D quantification. Based on my doctoral research at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

View the book

Selected publications

All publications
  1. 2026Decoding Acheulean percussive technology: an experimental approach to understanding use-wear traces in different raw materialsJournal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 9, 26
  2. 2025Exploring early Acheulian technological decision-making: a controlled experimental approach to raw material selection for percussive artifacts in Melka Wakena, EthiopiaPLOS ONE
  3. 2022The Middle Paleolithic ground stone tools of Nesher Ramla unit V (Southern Levant): a multi-scale use-wear approach for assessing the assemblage functional variabilityQuaternary International, 624, 94–106
  4. 2021Using mechanical experiments to study ground stone tool use: exploring the formation of percussive and grinding wear traces on limestone toolsJournal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 37, 102971
  5. 2019Technology, use-wear and raw material sourcing analysis of a c. 7500 cal BP lithic assemblage from Cabeço da Amoreira shellmidden (Muge, Portugal)Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 11(2), 433–453