Project : Landscapes of Negociation : Modelling the Early Agriculture in west Norway. 

Role: Conducting quantitative models to reconstruct the Mid-Late Holocene land-covers, using a combination of pollen-based statistical analyses, and GIS-based spatial analysis. 

1. REVEALS and LOVE Models (Land-cover Reconstruction) using R (statistical computing language) with custom implementations in MATLAB or Python for advanced modeling

2. Bayesian Chronological Modeling (for Radiocarbon Data)

3. GIS & Spatial Modeling (For integrating land-use layers, site distribution, and palaeoecological reconstructions), using ArcGIS / QGIS, LandClim or LPJ-GUESS, and TerrSet / IDRISI (landscape change modeling).

4. Statistical & Machine Learning Tools: In my recent study, I integrate Principal Components Analysis (PCA) or Redundancy Analysis (RDA) to assess environmental drivers and Random Forests, Bayesian Networks, and Boosted Regression Trees to predict land-use patterns based on settlement and landscape variables

Zhao, X., Kaniewski, D., Wang, Y., Marriner, N., Salem, A., Alassal, S.E., Liu, Y., Jiang, F., Chen, J., Sun, Q. and Li, M., 2025. On the long and winding road: unravelling the late emergence of Neolithic agriculture in the Nile Delta. Quaternary Science Reviews, 359, p.109368.

Sheisha, H., Kaniewski, D., Marriner, N., Djamali, M., Younes, G., Chen, Z., ... & Morhange, C. (2023). Feeding the pyramid builders : Early agriculture at Giza in Egypt. Quaternary Science Reviews, 312, 108172. 

Sheisha, H., Kaniewski, D., Marriner, N., Djamali, M., Younes, G., Chen, Z., ... & Morhange, C. (2022). Nile waterscapes facilitated the construction of the Giza pyramids during the 3rd millennium BCE. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(37), e2202530119. 

Sheisha, H., Zhao, X., Salem, A., Liu, Y., Sun, Q., ... & Chen, Z. (2018). Early Middle Holocene climatic and environmental changes in the Nile delta and implications for early agriculture. Journal of Lake Sciences, 30(3), 857-864. DOI: 10.18307/2018.0327. (In Chinese).

Zhao, X., Sheisha, H., Thomas, I., Salem, A., Sun, Q., Liu, Y., ... & Chen, Z. (2021). Climate-driven early agricultural origins and development in the Nile Delta, Egypt. Journal of Archaeological Science, 136, 105498.

Younes G., Kaniewski D., Marriner N., Morhange C., Sheisha H., Odler M., Wang Y., Chen Z., El-Qady G., Saleem A., Véron A. The construction of the Giza pyramids chronicled by human copper contamination // Geology. 2024. 

Younes, G., Marriner, N., Kaniewski, D., Sheisha, H., Chen, Z., Salama, A., ... & Morhange, C. (2024). The pyramid builders' waterways: Reconstructing the ancient topography of Khufu’s Pharaonic Harbour at Giza, Egypt. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 53, 104303.