Geoinformatik / GIS

Dr. Christian Sommer

Institute of Geography
University of Tübingen
Rümelinstr. 19-23
D-72070 Tübingen
Room W401 (West Building, 1. Floor)

 

ROCEEH: The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Hölderlinstr. 12
D-72074 Tübingen
Raum S237

Contact
+49-(0)7071-29-77505
christian.sommerspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Consulting hours: On request.


Education

2017 - ongoing
ROCEEH Projeckt

Employment as research associate in the ROCEEH project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. First as a PhD student, now as a Post-Doc.

2021
Dr. rer. nat.

Graduation at the University of Tübingen with the title: "Reconstruction of the Pleistocene Landscape of Southern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa by means of GIS, Remote Sensing and Geomorphological Techniques".

2016
M.Sc.

Graduation of the master programme "Landscape System Sciences" at the Chair of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics at the University of Tübingen.

2012
B.Sc.

Graduation of the bachelor studies of Physical Geography at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.


Research

Publications

A complete list can be found at https://www.zotero.org/sommergeo

Will, M., Blessing, M., Möller, G. H. D., Msimanga, L., Pehnert, H., Riedesel, S., Botha, G. A., & Sommer, C. (2024). The Jojosi Dongas: An interdisciplinary project to study the evolution of human behaviour and landscapes in open-air contexts. Southern African Field Archaeology, 19. https://doi.org/10.36615/safa.19.3010.2024

Kandel, A. W., Kanaeva, Z., Sommer, C., Hochschild, V., & Haidle, M. N. (2023). The Aggregation of ROAD Data in the ARIADNE Pipeline: Pitfalls and Successes. Internet Archaeology, 64. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.64.9

Kandel, A. W., Sommer, C., Kanaeva, Z., Bolus, M., Bruch, A. A., Groth, C., Haidle, M. N., Hertler, C., Heß, J., Malina, M., Märker, M., Hochschild, V., Mosbrugger, V., Schrenk, F., & Conard, N. J. (2023). The ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD): A large-scale research database serves as an indispensable tool for human evolutionary studies. PLOS ONE, 18(8), e0289513. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289513

Fischer, L. M., Sommer, C., & Fitzsimmons, K. E. (2023). An open-source GIS approach to understanding dunefield morphologic variability at Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre), Central Australia. Frontiers in Earth Science, 11(1196244). https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1196244

Dapschauskas, R., Göden, M. B., Sommer, C., & Kandel, A. W. (2022). The Emergence of Habitual Ochre Use in Africa and its Significance for The Development of Ritual Behavior During The Middle Stone Age. Journal of World Prehistory, 35(3), 233–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-022-09170-2

Omran, A., Schröder, D., Sommer, C., Hochschild, V., & Märker, M. (2022). A GIS-based simulation and visualization tool for the assessment of gully erosion processes. Journal of Spatial Science, 0(0), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14498596.2022.2133020

Kandel, A. W., Haidle, M. N., & Sommer, C. (Eds.). (2022). Human Origins – Digital Future: An International Conference about the Future of Archaeological and Paleoanthropological Databases. Propylaeum. https://doi.org/10.11588/PROPYLAEUM.882

Sommer, C., Kandel, A. W., & Hochschild, V. (2022). The use of prehistoric ‘big data’ for mapping early human cultural networks. Journal of Maps, 18(4), 674–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2022.2118628

Will, M., Bader, G. D., Sommer, C., Cooper, A., & Green, A. (2022). Coastal adaptations on the eastern seaboard of South Africa during the Pleistocene and Holocene? Current evidence and future perspectives from archaeology and marine geology. Frontiers in Earth Science, 10(964423). https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.964423

Bader, G. D., Sommer, C., Conard, N. J., & Wadley, L. (2022). The final MSA of eastern South Africa: A comparative study between Umbeli Belli and Sibhudu. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 57(2), 197–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2022.2078553

Rodríguez, J., Willmes, C., Sommer, C., & Mateos, A. (2022). Sustainable human population density in Western Europe between 560.000 and 360.000 years ago. Scientific Reports, 12(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10642-w

Zakerinejad, R., Sommer, C., Hochschild, V., & Maerker, M. (2021). Spatial Distribution of Water Erosion Using Stochastic Modeling in the Southern Isfahan Province, Iran. Geografia Fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria, 44(2), 183–196. https://doi.org/10.4461/GFDQ.2021.44.14

Hochschild, V., Braun, A., Sommer, C., Warth, G., & Omran, A. (2021). Visualizing Landscapes by Geospatial Techniques. In D. Edler, C. Jenal, & O. Kühne (Eds.), Modern Approaches to the Visualization of Landscapes (pp. 47–78). Springer Fachmedien. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30956-5_4

Sommer, C., Braun, A., Hanold, M., Rosner, H.-J., & Hochschild, V. (2020). A Mobile Application to Visualize Historic Land Use along Hiking Trails in Southern Germany. GI_Forum 2020, 8(2), 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1553/giscience2020_02_s45

Haidle, M. N., Bolus, M., Bruch, A. A., Hertler, C., Hochschild, V., Kanaeva, Z., Sommer, C., & Kandel, A. W. (2020). Human Origins—Digital Future, an international conference about the future of archeological and paleoanthropological databases. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 29(6), 289–292. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21870

Bosino, A., Bernini, A., Botha, G. A., Bonacina, G., Pellegrini, L., Omran, A., Hochschild, V., Sommer, C., & Maerker, M. (2020). Geomorphology of the upper Mkhomazi River basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with emphasis on late Pleistocene colluvial deposits. Journal of Maps, 0(0), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2020.1790435

Maerker, M., Schillaci, C., Melis, R. T., Kropáček, J., Bosino, A., Vilímek, V., Hochschild, V., Sommer, C., Altamura, F., & Mussi, M. (2019). Geomorphological processes, forms and features in the surroundings of the Melka Kunture Palaeolithic site, Ethiopia. Journal of Maps, 15(2), 797–806. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2019.1669497

Kanaeva, Z., Hochschild, V., Märker, M., & Sommer, C. (2018). Digital Data and Tools in Archaeology: The ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD). GI_Forum 2018, 6(2), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1553/giscience2018_02_s3

Preprints

Riedesel, S., Guérin, G., Thomsen, K. J., Sontag-González, M., Blessing, M., Botha, G. A., Hellers, M., Möller, G., Peffeköver, A., Sommer, C., Zander, A., & Will, M. (2024). A direct comparison of single grain and multi-grain aliquot luminescence dating of feldspars from colluvial deposits in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. GChron. https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-2024-19

Möller, G. H. D., Mazel, A. D., Sommer, C., Botha, G. A., Conard, N. J., Riedesel, S., & Will, M. (2024). Revisited and revalorized: Technological and refitting studies at the Middle Stone Age open-air knapping site Jojosi 1 (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4915370/v1

Axen, S. D., Gessner, A., Sommer, C., Weitzel, N., & Tejero-Cantero, Á. (2022). Spatiotemporal modeling of European paleoclimate using doubly sparse Gaussian processes (arXiv:2211.08160). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2211.08160

Omran, A., Schröder, D., Sommer, C., Hochschild, V., & Maerker, M. (2022). A GIS-based Simulation and Visualization Tool for the Assessment of Gully Erosion Processes. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1751074/v1

Conferences & Workshops

2024/07 | International Commission on Continental Erosion (ICCE) Symposium 2024 of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) at KU Eichstätt, DE.

2023/11 | Big Historical Data Conference (BHDC) at the Max-Planck-Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, DE. Presentation

2023/10 | 41st annual meeting of the Working Group Climate (AK Klima), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geographie (DGfG), Tübingen, DE. Organized

2023/07 | 21st Conference of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), Rome, IT.

2023/07 | FPCUP Summer-School and Workshop "Copernicus for Cultural Heritage", German Aeorospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, DE. Poster

2023/04 | 50th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Amsterdam, NL. Presentation

2022/08 | 49th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Oxford, UK. Presentation

2022/06 | Joint conference by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte (DGUF) and NFDI4Objects, Franfurt/Main, DE. Presentation

2022/05 | ESA Living Planet Symposium, Bonn, DE. Presentation

2021/11 | Mid European Geomorphology Meeting (MGM 2021), Munich, DE. Presentation

2021/10 | EUROPEANS Workshop "Simulating Human Behavior - Targeted design of agent‐based models", virtual. Presentation

2021/07 | 48th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), virtual. Presentation

2020/10 | Workshop of the Academies' Union, "Fair & Co", virtual. Presentation

2020/06 |  ROCEEH Conference "Human Origins – Digital Future: An International Conference about the Future of Archaeological and Paleoanthropological Databases", virtual. Presentation, Proceedings, Article

2020/05 | EGU Generaly Assembly 2020, virtual. Presentation

2019/04 | 47th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Kraków, PL.

2019/01 | The 22nd conference of the Southern African Society of Quaternary Research (SASQUA), Mossel Bay, ZA.

2018/06 | Symposium for Geographic Information Science (GI_FORUM), Special Session on Digital Humanities, Salzburg, AT.

2018/03 | 46th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Tübingen, DE.

2016/09 | Modelling Environmental Dynamics and Hominin Dispersals Around the Mid-Pleistocene Revolution (METHOD), Sassari, IT.

2016/09 | Jahrestagung der Arbeitskreise „Fernerkundung“ (DGfG) und „Auswertung von Fernerkundungsdaten“ (DGPF), Halle/Saale, DE.

2013-2019 | AGIT Symposium & GI_Forum, Salzburg, AT.

Other publications

Sommer, C., & Axen, S. D. (2023). Building a consensus model of paleoclimate with machine learning. ROCEEH Newsletter, 22, 8–9. https://www.hadw-bw.de/sites/default/files/documents/Newsletter%20ROCEEH%2022_2023.pdf

Sommer, C., Kandel, A. W., & Hochschild, V. (2022). Mapping a macroscale image of prehistoric cultural networks. ROCEEH Newsletter, 21, 2–3. https://www.hadw-bw.de/sites/default/files/documents/Newsletter_ROCEEH%2021_2022.pdf

Sommer, C. (2021). The evolution of the landscape surrounding Sibhudu Cave – and its implications for early occupants. ROCEEH Newsletter, 19, 2–4. https://www.hadw-bw.de/sites/default/files/documents/Newsletter%20ROCEEH%2019_2021.pdf

Sommer, C. (2019). Geomorphological field campaign in KwaZulu-Natal (RSA) in spring 2018. ROCEEH Newsletter, 15, 5–6. https://www.hadw-bw.de/sites/default/files/documents/Newsletter%20ROCEEH%2015-2019.pdf


Teaching

University Teaching

Annually changing courses at the University of Tübingen. Since responsibilities change every semester, please refer directly to the module page for the current lectures.

  • GEO 25: Statistics (B.Sc.)
  • GEO 31: Physsical Geography II: Field campaign (B.Sc.)
  • GEO 51: Integrative Project (B.Sc.)
    • 2017: Geomorphology of the Oltrepo-Pavese, Italy
    • 2021: Orchard meadows and climate change
  • GEO 54: Geographic Methods II (B.Sc.)
  • GEO 76: Applied Geographic Information Systems (M.Sc.)
  • GEO 87: Applied Remote Sensing (M.Sc.)

Supervised Theses

  • Pehnert, H. (2024). Gully erosion dynamics in the Upper Mfolozi, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. An inventory of gully characteristics and development and an evaluation of contributing factors [M.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
  • Hirsch, C.-M. (2024). How do geopolitical conflicts influence archaeological work on site? A cartographic analysis based on data from the ROCEEH project [B.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
  • Geisbusch, M. L. (2024). Restoration Effects on Peatland Vegetation – Integrating Field and Landsat Data [B.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Awarded the Sustainability Prize 2024 of the University of Tübingen.
  • Löhle, Vanessa. (2023). The possibilities for supporting the assessment of the ecomorphological status of rivers through the use of UAVs and an object-based image processing approach (OBIA) based on the LAWA approach [M.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
  • Ameli, Firouzeh (2023). Create a 3D model of the Geißenklösterle site and connect it to a Microsoft Access database in ArcGIS Pro version 3.0.0. [Abschlussarbeit im Rahmen der Ausbildung zur Archäotechnikerin für Archäologiewissenschaften]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
  • Fischer, Lorenz M. (2022). Remote-sensing based analysis of aeolian-fluvial interactions in the Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) Basin, Australia, using open-source GIS [B.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Published in Fischer et al. (2023).
  • Nübel, Manuel (2022). GIS-gestützte Least-Cost-Modellierung des Mobilitäts- und Ressourcenraumes früher Jäger und Sammler [M.Sc. Thesis]. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

Further Education

Courses in the certificate program Zertifikatsstudium Geodatenmanager/in at the Zentrum für Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildug at the University of Tübingen.

  • Geographic Information Systems I
  • Remote Sensing i+II (currently)
  • Cartography