Louise Le Meillour

Louise Le Meillour

Postdoc

I am a bioarchaeologist interested in human-animal relationaship in arid environments.

I joined the Globe as a Fyssen Fondation fellow with the project "Looking for constraints" in 2021, and was awarded a MSCA postdoctoral fellowship to pursue my research at the University of Copenhagen, with the project ICARHUS.

I focus on characterising preserved ancient proteins from faunal remains of Quaternary archaeological sites. My main interest lies in inferring past human populations responses to environmental pressure, especially in regard to the advent of domestication. I do so by assessing the proportion of wild species and related incorporation of domesticates in past human diet to highlight any shifts in subsistence economies in relation to past climatic events, mainly in the Middle East and Africa. 

I am part of the Franco-Namibian Archaeological mission (dir. Dr. D. Pleurdeau), where we excavate and document past practices in the Erongo region of Namibia.

Selected publications

  1. Published

    The name of the game: palaeoproteomics and radiocarbon dates further refine the presence and dispersal of caprines in eastern and southern Africa

    Le Meillour, L., Zazzo, A., Zirah, S., Tombret, O., Barriel, V., Arthur, K. W., Arthur, J. W., Cauliez, J., Chaix, L., Curtis, M. C., Gifford-Gonzalez, D., Gunn, I., Gutherz, X., Hildebrand, E., Khalidi, L., Millet, M., Mitchell, P., Studer, J., Vila, E., Welker, F. & 2 others, Pleurdeau, D. & Lesur, J., 2023, In: Royal Society Open Science. 10, 11, 19 p., 231002.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  2. Published
  3. Palaeoproteomics gives new insight into early southern African pastoralism

    Le Meillour, Louise, Zirah, S., Zazzo, A., Cersoy, S., Détroit, F., Imalwa, E., Lebon, M., Nankela, A., Tombret, O., Pleurdeau, D. & Lesur, J., 2020, In: Scientific Reports. 10, 11 p., 14427.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  4. Identification of degraded bone and tooth splinters from arid environments using palaeoproteomics

    Le Meillour, Louise, Zazzo, A., Lesur, J., Cersoy, S., Marie, A., Lebon, M., Pleurdeau, D. & Zirah, S., 2018, In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 511, p. 472-482 11 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

ID: 285288498