Zenobia Jacobs
South African archaeologist and earth scientist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zenobia Jacobs is a South African-born archaeologist and earth scientist specialising in geochronology. She is a professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia.[1]
Aberystwyth University, Wales
Zenobia Jacobs | |
|---|---|
| Born | South Africa |
| Alma mater | University of Stellenbosch Aberystwyth University, Wales |
| Occupations | archaeologist and earth scientist |
Education and career
Jacobs graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, in 1998, studying archaeology and geography, and received her PhD from Aberystwyth University, Wales, in 2004.[citation needed] She joined the University of Wollongong as a research fellow in 2006 and is currently a professor in the Centre for Archaeological Science and the School of Earth of Environmental Sciences.[1] She is also an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.[citation needed] She was awarded the International Union for Quaternary Research's Sir Nick Shackleton Medal in 2009.[2]
Jacobs' research traces the evolutionary history of humans using single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating.[3][4] Her work on the Denisovans and Neanderthals has helped establish a timeline of when the two groups of archaic humans were present in southern Siberia and the environmental conditions they faced before going extinct.[5][6] She has also contributed to reconstructions of past environments in Africa,[7] using ancient high sea-levels as analogues for future trends,[8][clarification needed] and studies of the ecological footprint of the first humans to reach Australia[9] and Madagascar.[10]
Selected publications
- Zhang, Dongju; Xia, Huan; Chen, Fahu; Li, Bo; Slon, Viviane; Cheng, Ting; Yang, Ruowei; Jacobs, Zenobia; Dai, Qingyan; Massilani, Diyendo; Shen, Xuke (30 October 2020). "Denisovan DNA in Late Pleistocene sediments from Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau". Science. 370 (6516): 584–587. doi:10.1126/science.abb6320. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 33122381. S2CID 225956074.
- Douka, Katerina; Slon, Viviane; Jacobs, Zenobia; Ramsey, Christopher Bronk; Shunkov, Michael V.; Derevianko, Anatoly P.; Mafessoni, Fabrizio; Kozlikin, Maxim B.; Li, Bo; Grün, Rainer; Comeskey, Daniel (2019). "Age estimates for hominin fossils and the onset of the Upper Palaeolithic at Denisova Cave". Nature. 565 (7741): 640–644. Bibcode:2019Natur.565..640D. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0870-z. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 30700871. S2CID 59525455.