• Geoinformatics and remote sensing
• Landscape evolution and geomorphology
• Use of data mining and machine learning techniques on cultural and scientific databases
• The Late Pleistocene of Eastern South Africa

Since September 2016, research assistant responsible for maintaining and updating the ROAD Database (Roceeh Out of Africa Database). Analysis of paleolandscapes and geomorphology using GIS and remote sensing.
February 2016 – August 2016, student research assistant for GIS analysis and cartography. Implementation and maintenance of a geographic database for web services and metadata.

2021 Ph.D. in Geography, University of Tübingen.
2016 M.Sc. in Physical Geography: Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing, University of Tübingen.
2012 B.Sc. in Physical Geography, University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Bader, G. D., Sommer, C., Linstädter, J., Masia, D. P., Blessing, M. A., Forrester, B., & MacDonald, B. L. (2025). Decoding hunter-gatherer knowledge and the selective choice of lithic raw materials during the Middle and Late Stone Age in Eswatini. Journal of Archaeological Science, 180, 106302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2025.106302

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. (2025). A direct comparison of single-grain and multi-grain aliquot luminescence dating of feldspars from colluvial deposits in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Geochronology, 7(1), 59–81. https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-7-59-2025.

Möller, G.H.D., Mazel, A.D., Sommer, C. et al. (2025): Revisited and Revalorised: Technological and Refitting Studies at the Middle Stone Age Open-Air Knapping Site Jojosi 1 (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). J Paleo Arch 8, 5. DOI: 10.1007/s41982-024-00205-y.

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 behavior 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 morphological variability at Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre), Central Australia. Frontiers in Earth Science, 11(1196244). https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1196244

Khan, S., Omran, A., Schröder, D., Sommer, C., Hochschild, V., & Märker, M. (2023). A QGIS plugin for gully erosion modeling. Earth Science Informatics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-023-01092-7

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 on 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 on the future of archaeological 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 Paleolithic 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

October 2025 | Workshop on "Big Data and Human Evolution," organized by the Bones Lab, University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy.

October 2025 | Symposium "Diversifying Networks - How Culture Infuses the Environment," organized by ROCEEH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

September 2025 | Geo4Göttingen / German Society for Geomorphology (DGGM), Göttingen, Germany. 💾 Abstract

May 2025 | 11th Meeting of Developing International Geoarchaeology (DIG) / 20th Annual Conference of the Working Group on Geoarchaeology, Tübingen, Germany.

May 2025 | 52nd Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Athens, Greece.

November 2024 | 2024 Symposium of the International Commission on Continental Erosion (ICCE) of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) at the University of Eichstätt, Germany.

November 2023 | Big Historical Data Conference (BHDC) at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany. 💾 Presentation

October 2023 | 41st Annual Meeting of the Working Group on Climate (AK Klima), German Geographical Society (DGfG), Tübingen, Germany. 💾 Organized

July 2023 | 21st Conference of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), Rome, Italy. 💾 Presentation

July 2023 | FPCUP Summer School and Workshop "Copernicus for Cultural Heritage, " German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. 💾 Poster

April 2023 | 50th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Amsterdam, Netherlands. 💾 Presentation

August 2022 | 49th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Oxford, UK. 💾 Presentation

June 2022 | Joint conference hosted by the German Society for Prehistory and Early History (DGUF) and NFDI4Objects, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 💾 Presentation

May 2022 | ESA Living Planet Symposium, Bonn, Germany. 💾 Presentation

November 2021 | Mid-European Geomorphology Meeting (MGM 2021), Munich, Germany. 💾 Presentation

Oct. 2021 | EUROPEANS Workshop "Simulating Human Behavior - Targeted Design of Agent-Based Models," virtual. 💾 Presentation

July 2021 | 48th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), virtual. 💾 Presentation

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

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

May 2020 | EGU General Assembly 2020, virtual. 💾 Presentation

April 2019 | 47th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Kraków, Poland.

January 2019 | The 22nd Conference of the Southern African Society of Quaternary Research (SASQUA), Mossel Bay, South Africa.

June 2018 | Symposium on Geographic Information Science (GI_FORUM), Special Session on Digital Humanities, Salzburg, Austria.

March 2018 | 46th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Tübingen, Germany.

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

September 2016 | Annual Conference of the Working Groups on “Remote Sensing” (DGfG) and “Analysis of Remote Sensing Data” (DGPF), Halle/Saale, Germany.

2013–2019 | AGIT Symposium & GI_Forum, Salzburg, Austria.

• Homepage at the University of Tübingen
• Personal homepage at sommergeo.com
• GitHub: sommergeo
• ORCID: 0000-0001-9062-0876
• List of publications: Zotero
• Presentations and figures: figshare.com
• Twitter: @sommer_geo
• Mastodon: @ sommer@fosstodon.org