Thomas Hess

Short Bio:

Thomas Hess was born in 1987 in Hinwil, Switzerland. He studied Prehistoric Archaeology at the Universities of Zurich and Cambridge with Earth Sciences (ETH Zurich) and Social Anthropology as minor subjects. In 2016 he completed his PhD at the University of Tübingen on the stone tools from a Late Magdalenian and Early Mesolithic rock shelter site on the Swabian Jura. The study was part of a larger project aimed at adding several cave sites—thknown for the oldest evidence of figurative art and musical instruments—to the list of UNESCO World Heritage. Between 2019 and 2020 he conducted research on the occurrence of lithic raw materials in Central Germany in cooperation with the University of Aarhus, funded via the Swiss National Science Foundation. Furthermore, he investigated a prehistoric rock crystal mine in the Canton of Valais where the material was mined as early as 10,000 years ago. His research interests include interactions between humans and their environment, lithic analysis (especially lithic sourcing), Palaeolithic and Mesolithic cultures, Alpine archaeology, archaeological theory, diachronic landscape studies and ethnoarchaeology.