Kai Michel Sun, 22nd January 2023, 5:00 pm The riddle of the shaman An archaeological cold case is reopened Lecture A woman, a child, circumstances of death unexplained. Discovered by the Nazis and misused for their own purposes, the 9,000-year-old grave sank into oblivion. Now the cold case is being solved with the help of state-of-the-art science – including at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, where Svante Pääbo, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, also conducts research. The results make the Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg one of the most exciting archaeological finds in Europe. Bestselling author and historian Kai Michel presents a first-rate archaeological thriller that offers deep insights into our origins and shows what precise analysis and modern research can do to decipher our past. Rarely has human history been as timely and significant as in the case of this mysterious woman. She was already a legend during her lifetime – and her power had an effect far beyond death. Kai Michel has written for the major German-language media, from GEO to Die Zeit to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Together with Carel van Schaik, he read the Bible from an evolutionary perspective as a diary of humanity, and with archaeologist Harald Meller, Kai Michel presented the bestseller Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra (2018). He lives as a book author in Zurich and the Black Forest. The Riddle of the Shaman has been reviewed in numerous newspapers, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung.