My research interests include: the relationship between humans and tropical forests and its evolution through time; perishable material culture during prehistory; and the use of plants by humans during the past and nowadays. My research is interdisciplinary and I explore these themes by a combination of methods such as functional analysis of stone tools, excavations, and ethnoarchaeology.

Projects

I am the head together with T. Vitales of the “Mission Palawan”, funded by the French Ministry of Education and Foreign Affairs. It aims at exploring how humans adapted to the rainforests of Southern Palawan Island, how their practices evolved with time, and how they transformed the landscape, including with changes in populations due to migrations, between 12 000 and 4 000 years ago.

 

In addition, I created the initiative Pamana: Voices of Philippine Heritage. This is a project conducted hand in hand with members of the Filipino diapora, in particular Eunice Averion, president of the Oyayi Association in Barcelona, and Deone Dasallas. This project aims to contribute to the decolonization of the discourse on Philippine Heritage by integrating the voice of different stakeholders, including members of the Filipino diapora, indigenous people, artists, Filipino and international researchers.

 

In the frame of this initiative, we created the participative exhibition “Trajectories and Movements of the Philippine Identity” that took place so far in Barcelona and Brussels, and conducted workshops and guided tours at the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures in Barcelona

Selected Works
Xhauflair, H., Jago-On, S., Vitales, T. J., Manipon, D., Amano, N., Callado, J. R., ... & Pawlik, A. (2023). The invisible plant technology of Prehistoric Southeast Asia: Indirect evidence for basket and rope making at Tabon Cave, Philippines, 39–33,000 years ago. Plos one, 18(6), e0281415.

Xhauflair, H., Pawlik, A., Jago-On, S., Vitales, T., Callado, J. R., Tandang, D., ... & Forestier, H. (2020). Plant processing experiments and use-wear analysis of Tabon Cave artefacts question the intentional character of denticulates in prehistoric Southeast Asia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 32, 102334.

Mercader, J., Akeju, T., Brown, M., Bundala, M., Collins, M. J., Copeland, L., ... & Xhauflair, H. (2018). Exaggerated expectations in ancient starch research and the need for new taphonomic and authenticity criteria. Facets, 3(1), 777-798.

Xhauflair, H., Pawlik, A., Forestier, H., Saos, T., Dizon, E., & Gaillard, C. (2017). Use-related or contamination? Residue and use-wear mapping on stone tools used for experimental processing of plants from Southeast Asia. Quaternary International, 427, 80-93.

Xhauflair, H., Pawlik, A., Gaillard, C., Forestier, H., Vitales, T. J., Callado, J. R., ... & Dizon, E. (2016). Characterisation of the use-wear resulting from bamboo working and its importance to address the hypothesis of the existence of a bamboo industry in prehistoric Southeast Asia. Quaternary International, 416, 95-125.