page_title: Lucinda Backwell
section_title: Current research
hierarchical_section_title: Lucinda Backwell / Current research
caption_attribution_description: Museum Africa
context_page_description: Lucinda Backwell is an archaeologist and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She obtained her MSc in palaeoanthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School in 2000. Her PhD in palaeoanthropology was awarded in 2004, making her the first South African woman to be awarded a PhD in palaeoanthropology at a local institution.
  In 2011 she was promoted to senior researcher at the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand, where she taught introductory courses on human evolution and taphonomy and supervised postgraduates on various topics, including fossil assemblages from caves in the Cradle of Humankind. In 2017 she moved to Argentina and became associated with Instituto Superior de Estudios Sociales, Argentina. She has been published 40 times and has been involved in 11 documentaries. Her research interests include taphonomy, archaeology, paleontology and ethnoarchaeology.
context_section_description: Border Cave Middle Stone Age site excavation and analysis, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
  Working on a book, digital archive of a century-old collection of traditional San material culture, and subtitled film of Kalahari San elders describing in their own words, and demonstrating the use of the items, now housed at Museum Africa in South Africa.
  Taphonomic analysis of hominin remains from the Rising Star site, South Africa.
  Taphonomic analysis of Australopithecus sediba and associated Plio-Pleistocene fauna from Malapa, South Africa.
  Taphonomic analysis and description of a Holocene large mammal mass death assemblage from the South African interior.
  Experimental taphonomy: ongoing invertebrate modification of bone in South Africa.
  Experimental taphonomy: Refining the functional interpretation of early hominin bone tools: new experiments and texture analyses.
  Experimental taphonomy: interpreting breakage patterns on large mammal bones.
  Longitudinal studies of modern mammal carcass modification, disarticulation, dispersal and burial in a semi-arid grassland environment in South Africa.
  Description of Middle Stone Age bone artefacts from Sibudu Cave, South Africa.
  Description of Middle and Later Stone Age bone artefacts from Bushman Rock Shelter, South Africa.
  Description of bone tools from the Late Pleistocene site of Ma’anshan, southern China.
  Analysis of the Middle Stone Age Border Cave infant burial and associated Conus shells
  Origin(s) of ritual mortuary practice, a reappraisal of the fossil evidence.
  Holocene mortuary practices in Northwest Argentina.
caption: Museum Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
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