New Team Member!
Dr Jerome Robitaille is an ethnoarchaeologist with focus on the functional, social, and symbolic practices that are embodied and surround stone tools; their production, use, function, and discard.
He is the author of the book ‘Analyse fonctionnelle de l’outillage de broyage de Tell el-Iswid: Approche expérimentale et ethnographique.’ published by Éditions Universitaires Européennes, and many articles and book chapters.
Prior to joining Torun University, Dr. Robitaille served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Monrepos Research Centre & Museum, part of Leiza Museums in Germany, where he and his team gained international public recognition for their discovery of evidence of fishing with nets and baskets in the Magdalenian (https://www.independent.co.uk/…/european-ancient…).
Dr Robitaille specializes in usewear and functional analysis, with focus on the comparative evolution of technical systems within different contexts. His work integrates archaeological and ethnographic approaches to explore how technical systems evolve, are adapted, transmitted, and acquire meaning across diverse cultural contexts. His ethnographic research examines how people engage with their environments, materials, and tools—foregrounding local voices and embodied experiences.
Dr Robitaille’s ethnographic interviews and experimental replications provide a comparative foundation for understanding mineral and botanical resources exploitation; morphological innovation, technical borrowing in stone tools, and cultural transmission. His study of kinematics during stone tool use serves to identify efficiency-related and cultural based differences.
His archaeological work is informed by his ethnographic experience. Dr Robitaille explores the mechanisms of morphological innovation, diffusion, and technical borrowing, through the analysis of artefacts found at different sites of different time-periods. By combining chaîne opératoire, design theory, the anthropology of techniques, and laboratory-based analysis,
Dr. Robitaille’s research aims to reconstruct the economic organization, social structures, and cultural dynamics of prehistoric and contemporary small-scale societies. His work contributes to debates on innovation, adaptation, and resilience in long-term human histories.
