Isaiah Nengo was a visionary scientist from the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) who advocated for diversity in human evolution studies. His passing follows that of TBI’s late founder, Richard Leakey, earlier this year.

Our latest #HERIspotlight shines on Stella Basinyi, a postdoctoral student and HERI Advancing Womxn fellow whose research examines the ownership of narratives in archaeology and heritage.

HERI’s Professor Rebecca Ackermann has been appointed to the editorial board of Philosophical Transactions. The world’s first and longest-running scientific journal, her position will help broaden the journal’s representation of academics based in the Global South.

University of Johannesburg geologist, Tebogo Makhubela, is the second author and only Black South African scientist on a paper suggesting recently discovered Homo naledi child skull fragments may have been deliberately deposited.

HERI’s #AdvancingWomxn PhD candidate Rivoningo Khosa joins Dr Dipuo Kgotleng, director of the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Palaeo-Research Institute, share their unique and inspirational experiences as women in palaeoscience.

The seven seminar series includes a special Heritage Month event in partnership with the University of Johannesburg (UJ), held at 12pm on the first Tuesday of each month.

Linda Mbeki takes centre stage in our next #HERIspotlight. A chemist, historian and archaeologist, her postdoc research sheds light on lives lived during South Africa’s colonial period.

A nagging suspicion about the understudied interior of South Africa by HERI’s Dr Jayne Wilkins is now a Nature paper that flips the coastal narrative of human origins - and attempts to transform archaeology.

HERI's Dr Vuyiswa Lupuwana and Dr Yonatan Sahle join UCT’s Department of Archaeology to make it the first Faculty of Science department with a black staff majority. The researchers share what this means to them and more in this Q&A with Rebecca Ackermann.

New research published by HERI researchers and students shows evidence that early modern humans lived in South Africa’s Kalahari Basin 105,000 years ago - and that there was abundant water on the now dry landscape.

Our #HERIspotlight continues with Rivoningo Khosa. A 2020 fellow, she studies how South Africa’s ancient landscapes evolved, and helps builds research capacity for future studies in her field.

HERI's Professor Rebecca Ackermann joins the Africa Oxford Initiative Globinar on the future of anthropology, discussing how archaeology can reinvent itself as a positive force for the continent's development.

HERI has two funding opportunities for postdoctoral students with a passion for investigating human origins, specifically South Africa’s record of human evolution. Deadline for applications is 15 January.

Our latest #HERIspotlight shines on 2020 fellow Precious Chiwara. A PhD student in archaeology from Zimbabwe, her work uncovers the early record of human evolution in South Africa’s Kalahari Basin.

Introducing the #HERIspotlight series: an ongoing series of posts that uncover our members as sources of inspiration and drivers of excellent science. Our latest spotlights University of Toronto’s Dr Lauren Schroeder.

Pulling on examples from the past, present and in her own experience, HERI’s Deputy Director Rebecca Ackermann demonstrated the racism, sexism and othering embedded in colonial science in the 5th Annual Raymond Dart Lecture with Griffith University in Australia.

In a Heritage Month digital event, HERI invited young, black South African researchers to share their experiences with the colonial language of science - and ask how we can do better.

Introducing the #HERIspotlight series, which uncover our members as sources of inspiration and drivers of excellent science. We launch with a spotlight on HERI doctoral student Robyn Humphreys.

UCT News profiles HERI’s inaugural 2020 Advancing Womxn fellows and their efforts to make a mark for science and diversity in a field that is still too homogeneous.

On Women’s Day weekend in 2019, HERI ran its first annual women’s field camp. While COVID-19 has put 2020’s camp on hold, HERI’s Dr Robyn Pickering and Dr Jayne Wilkins say it hasn’t diminished the positive experience it gave women or the value such camps can have for changing the face of palaeoanthropology in South Africa.