Facilities

3D Surface Scanner

The Department of Evolutionary Anthropology houses two surface scanner systems, able to create high detailed textured 3D-surfaces of nearly any object.

The bigger and more versatile Breuckmann surface Scanner is set up permanently at the Department. This device can scan nearly anything (from human-sized objects to tooth-sized objects), but is bulky and immobile.

The smaller Artec Handscanners therefore, with the size of a medium camcorder, can be used for field research and mobile tasks.

More information about the lab and projects is available here.

Ancient DNA Genomics and Biological Anthropology

The Department of Evolutionary Anthropology also houses an ancient DNA lab.

The ancient DNA facility uses state-of-the-art equipment and techniques to produce and sequence ancient DNA molecules from archaeological, environmental and forensic sources. It consists of several rooms and has been designed particularly for high volume bone/teeth/sediment optimization workflow for nuclear NGS data.

More information is available here.

Geo/DNA Microarchaeology laboratory

The Department of Evolutionary Anthropology houses a microarchaeology laboratory. The laboratory is equipped with an Olympus BX53-P polarizing microscope for archaeological soil micromorphology study of thin sections. We use plane and cross polarized light as well as oblique incident light. Documentation is performed with a microscope camera, cellSens software and a Wacom tablet. We scan thin section with an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner. We have a in-house reference collection with over 300 thin sections from over 20 archaeological sites. The collection encompasses various environments, riverine and lacustrine shore contexts, deserts, sandstone and limestone rock shelters and caves. Archaeologically, we house material from the Middle to Later Stone Age, Lower to Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and the Classic Period of Mesoamerica.

More information is available here.

micro CT

The Department of Evolutionary Anthropology is responsible for Core Facility of Micro-Computed Tomography. This lab houses a custom made micro computer tomograph, capable of digitizing objects of different size. This machine is one of few in all of Austria.

The Viscom X8060 microCT is able to scan objects ranging from the size of a complete human skull down to a solitary tooth in variable resolution.

More information about the lab and the micro CT is available here.