Lucinda Ruth Backwell

Lucinda Backwell is a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, where she is a Senior Researcher in the Evolutionary Studies Institute. She obtained her MSc. degree cum laude from the Anatomy Department at Wits Medical School in 2000, and graduated with a PhD. in Palaeo-Anthropology from Wits and the University of Bordeaux in 2004. Her primary research interests include early hominin cultural behaviour and cognition, origin and evolution of bone tool technology, ethnoarchaeology amongst Kalahari Bushmen hunter-gatherers, origins of ritual mortuary practice, vertebrate taphonomy, correlating archaeology, palaeontology and climate change, and microscopic analysis of bone surface modifications. Lucinda gives introductory courses on human evolution and taphonomy to geology, zoology and Honours students, and supervises postgraduates on various topics, mostly relating to fossil assemblages from caves in the Cradle of Humankind.