My previous research has had a heavy emphasis on the archaeology of Neanderthals and other (earlier) Eurasian hominins and I have published widely on various aspects of the behaviour of early hominins, including their subsistence strategies and the environmental settings of their presence and absence in Eurasia. My studies of the Neandertal niche are heavily rooted in data obtained in archaeological field- and laboratory work, and I have (co-) directed fieldwork in the Netherlands, in France, northern Russia, Germany, and England.

In the last decade, my research has focused on the deep prehistory of fire usage, with a series of experimental and archaeological case studies, made possible by a KNAW-professorship prize (2013). It is within the context of those fire-related studies and the above mentioned Neumark-Nord project that I became very interested in the impact of early humans on their landscapes, as part of my broader interest in the development of the human niche. This interest recently resulted in joining Leiden University’s Liveable Planet initiative.