Dr. Lasse Vilien Sørensen is a senior researcher at The National Museum in Denmark and PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant “From Stone to Home”, investigating Neolithic value systems and inequality in the Aegean prehistory together with a large team of interdisciplinary researchers. With over 25 years in European prehistoric archaeology, Lasse has led many interdisciplinary research projects on Late Paleolithic-Mesolithic settlements and burials in Northern Europe, the spread of agriculture in Scandinavia, and the exploitation of rare raw materials and pigments in the Aegean prehistory. From 2017 to 2022 he was head of research and collections in the Department of Ancient Cultures of Denmark and the Mediterranean at the National Museum of Denmark. Recently, he launched the “Jade Odyssey Project”, surveying after jadeitite quarries on the Cycladic Island of Syros, and advanced studies on Mesolithic sites and burials together with research on the neolithisation processes in South Scandinavia. He is also one of the founders of the first global network on “Jade Exploiting Cultures”, which discusses and redefines socio-economic dynamics within prehistoric cultures around the world. Lasses’ role as PI is to manage the progression and leading the scientific direction in the “From Stone to Home” project.
Research Assistant, Frederik Vingaard is a Classical Archaeologist with years of fieldwork experience in the Eastern Mediterranean. He has worked on major archaeological surveys and excavations in Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Bulgaria, contributing expertise in excavation, documentation, and digital methods such as Total Station, GIS, GPS, 3D photogrammetry, and drone recording. Before joining the From Stone to Home project, he worked at numerous Stone Age rescue excavations in Denmark, combining practical fieldwork with digital documentation techniques. Within this project, he supports the PI and team in research, fieldwork, and dissemination, with a special focus on registering and analysing polished stone tools digitally.
Research Assistant, Dr. Warren Thompson, from the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Warren is a geologist and luminescence scientist who specialises in the dating of buried rock surfaces. He is part of the team, where he has been helping to identify rock sources that were associated with polished stone tool production during the Aegean Neolithic. His principal role is to identify geological and archaeological samples that might be suitable for luminescence (OSL) dating.
Dr. Constantinos Mavrogonatos, Assistant Professor from the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Pisa. Constantinos is a geologist, and his research focuses on the topics of mineralogy, geochemistry, and magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits, especially those hosting any of the so-called critical raw materials (CRMs). He is studying the distribution of trace elements in various minerals to monitor petrogenetic and metallogenic processes or evaluate its application as a discriminative factor for geoarchaeological provenance studies. Within the “Stone to Home” project, his main task is to do fieldwork and seek for raw materials sources in southeastern Europe, especially in the Mediterranean region (e.g., Greece, Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria) and study geological and archaeological samples to provide petrographic and mineral-chemical data.
Dr. Michael Brandl is a prehistoric archaeologist and geo-scientist specializing in lithic raw material provenance and resource economy. He serves as Coordinator of the Lithic Lab and leads the Archaeological Sciences unit at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). In From Stone to Home, he applies non-destructive analytical methods—including pXRF and FTIR spectroscopy—on raw materials and polished stone tools to determine their composition, provenance, and pathways into prehistoric economic networks.
Dr. Christina Tsoraki, from the University of Leicester in the UK. She is an archaeologist specializing in prehistoric archaeology with a focus on microwear analysis. She is one of the leading experts in her field, and has worked on projects in Greece, Britain, Cyprus and Turkey ranging in date from the Early Neolithic to the Classical/Hellenistic period. Between 2012 and 2018 she was the Head of the Ground Stone Team for the Çatalhöyük Research Project (Turkey). Her main role on the ‘From Stone to Home’ project is to conduct the microwear analysis of stone axes and to provide detailed information about their production, use and treatment.
Dr. Anastasios (Tasos) Bekiaris is a prehistoric archaeologist specializing in material culture studies, with a particular focus on ground stone technology. He is affiliated with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and brings extensive expertise to the technological analysis of ground stone tools across a wide chronological span—from the Epipaleolithic to the Late Bronze Age. Dr. Bekiaris was actively involved in several major research Projects (e.g., ERC PlantCult, ERC EXPLO, Tools & Tech Project), working on prehistoric sites in Greece and Cyprus. His research interests also encompass the application of digital technologies in archaeological investigation and interpretation. Within the ‘From Stone to Home’ Project, Dr. Bekiaris is responsible for the technological study of ground stone edge tool assemblages from multiple Neolithic sites in Greece, contributing to a deeper understanding of prehistoric crafts and technological traditions.
Dr. Onur Bamyaci, from the Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Department of Archaeology. As an archaeologist his current research is prehistoric ground stone assemblages of Western Anatolia from major Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. He is working on a diachronic typology of the ground stone tools of Western Anatolia, which will be instrumental for the project. In this project he will work both with microwear analysis and be involved in geological surveys for provenance analysis.
Prof. Gültekin Topuz, from the Eurasian Institute of Earth Sciences, Istanbul Technical University. is a geologist, specialized in the formation and geochronology of igneous and metamorphic rocks. The geologic evolution of the Tethyan belt, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region (Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece), is his main research interest. His role in this research project will be to help characterize archaological objects recovered at archaeological excavation sites and constrain their probable provenances in western Anatolia.
Dr. Benjamin D. Heredia is a geologist working at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. As part of his work, Benjamin develops new methods and workflows for combining several instrumentations, leading to state-of-the-art data from the Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). In the project “From Stone to Home”, Benjamin together with Tonny will contribute characterising the mineralogical and geochemical composition, as well as establishing geological dates of most raw materials and stone axes. All data combined with numerical modelling will provide insights in the origin and provenance of the materials and axes.
Dr. Tonny Bernt Thomsen is a geologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. His research focuses on developing innovative approaches and workflows that integrate multiple analytical techniques, producing high-quality results from Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). Within the project “From Stone to Home”, Tonny and Benjamin will play a key role in analysing the mineralogical and geochemical composition of raw materials and stone axes, as well as determining their geological ages. By combining these findings with numerical modelling, the study will shed light on the origin and provenance of the materials and tools.
Mads Lou Bendtsen is an archaeologist whose work has included excavations ranging from the Upper Paleolithic to historical periods. His research focuses on the Stone Age, particularly the transfer of technology, the provenance of ground stone tools, raw material economies, and migration. With a background as a curator at the Danish National Museum, Mads contributed to field studies and pilot projects that led up to the current ERC initiative. He remains involved in the project in various capacities.
He is currently engaged in a research project at Aarhus University titled “Objective Connections: Mapping Migration, Post-Migration Networks, and Identity in 3rd Millennium BCE Europe.”