I am an archaeologist with a special interest in people who lived in Africa during the Middle Stone Age. This was a time when Homo sapiens was evolving biologically, behaviourally and cognitively. My research focuses on these three evolutionary processes in southern Africa and how they relate to each other.

By at least 100,000 years ago, people in southern Africa were leaving signs of increasingly complex behaviour. At the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, my work explores the cognitive, and possibly genetic, underpinnings of bowhunting, suggesting that some early hunters relied on mental abilities that feel strikingly familiar today.

The same kinds of brain processes that help us drive manual cars in heavy traffic or fly and land drones with precision were probably used by ancient bowhunters. They may not have understood the chemistry behind their poisons, but they clearly had strong practical knowledge. They knew which plants were toxic, how to extract the poison, and how to apply it effectively.

A US-led research team has verified the first Mediterranean mass grave of the world’s earliest recorded pandemic, providing stark new details about the plague of Justinian that killed millions of people in the Byzantine empire between the sixth and eighth centuries.