I am a vertebrate paleontologist with an interest in avian evolution, (island) biogeography, Quaternary paleoecology and extinction. I use fossil and archaeologial bird remains from Island Southeast Asia and Scandinavia to study long-term patterns in avian biodiversity and the processes that have shaped modern bird distributions.

I am also the curator for the modern osteological collections at the University Museum. Our osteological collection contains >14.000 skeletal specimens, making it one of the largest collections in Scandinavia.The collection has a geographical focus on Scandinavia but contains specimens from other areas of the world as well. Highlights of our collection include a large collections of Norwegian horse breeds and marine mammals from the North Atlantic region. A searchable database lives here. 

My research in the media

'These colossal storks flew over Indonesia’s island of 'hobbit’-size humans' - National Geographic, 13 July 2022

'Giant Flesh-Eating Stork Was Able To Fly, New Fossils Show' - Forbes, 15 July 2022

From 2015 to 2018 I wrote for the Guardians' now-defunct Lost Worlds Revisited blog. A list of my posts can be found here. 

Bioarchaeology ARK125

Selected publications

Meijer, H.J.M., Walker, S.J., Sutikna, T., Wahyu Saptomo, E., and Tocheri, M.W., 2022. Why did the chicken cross the Wallace Line? Archaeological evidence suggests human-mediated dispersal of Gallus to Flores first occurred at least ~2.25 ka cal. BP. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.3192

Meijer, H.J.M., Sutikna, T., Saptomo, E.W., and Tocheri, M.W., 2022. More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography. Royal Society Open Science 9: 220435.

van den Bergh, G.D, Alloway, B.V., Michael Storey, M,  Setiawan, R., Yurnaldi, D., Kurniawan, I., Moore, M., Jatmiko, Brumm, A., Sutikna, T.,  Setiabudi, E., Prasetyo, U.W., Puspaningrum, M.R., Yoga, I., Meijer, H.J.M., Flude, S., Kohn, B., Pillans, B., Dosseto, T., Insani, H., Hayes, S., Westgate, J.A., Pearce, N.J.G., Awe Due, R. Lindelof, P.E., Morwood, M.J. An integrative tephrostratigraphic framework for the So’a Basin, central Flores (Indonesia) and its implications for faunal turnover and first island occupation by hominins. Quaternary Science Reviews, 294: 107721.

Louys, J., Braje, T.J., Chun-Hsiang Chang, Cosgrove, R., Fitzpatrick, S.M., Fujita, M., Hawkins, S., Ingicco, T., Kawamura, A., MacPhee, R.D.E., McDowell, M., Meijer, H.J.M., Piper, P., Roberts, P., Simmons, A.H., van den Bergh, G.D., van der Geer, A.A.E., Kealy, S., O’Connor, S., 2021. Impact of Pleistocene hominins on island biotas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (20).

Walker, S.J. and Meijer, H.J.M., 2021. Size variation in mid-Holocene North Atlantic Puffins indicates a dynamic response to climate change. PLOS ONE 16(2): e0246888.

A current list of publications can be found on CRIStin:

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.