Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Wragg Sykes in 2021
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Bristol (BA), University of Southampton (MA), University of Sheffield (PhD)
Occupation(s)Paleolithic archaeologist, broadcaster, writer
Known forMiddle Palaeolithic studies, Neanderthal research, co-founding TrowelBlazers
Notable workKindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art

Rebecca Wragg Sykes is a British paleolithic archaeologist, broadcaster, popular science writer and author who lives in Wales. She is interested in the Middle Palaeolithic, specifically in the lives of Neanderthals; and she is one of the founders of TrowelBlazers, a website set up to celebrate the lives of women in archaeology, palaeontology and geology. She is a patron of Humanists UK.[1]

Career

Wragg Sykes studied as an undergraduate at the University of Bristol, before gaining her BA in Archaeology in 2003, and MA in the Archaeology of Human Origins from the University of Southampton in 2004. Her doctoral thesis from the University of Sheffield, which examined evidence for late Neanderthals in Britain, was awarded in 2010.[2]

Following her Ph.D, Wragg Sykes was awarded a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at Université de Bordeaux, working in the PACEA laboratory on Neanderthal and prehistoric sites in the Massif Central mountains. She is currently an Honorary Fellow in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, and chercheur bénévole (Honorary Fellow) at the Université de Bordeaux.[3][4]

Science communication

Wragg Sykes has written for The Guardian,[5] Scientific American[6] and Aeon,[7] and appeared on history and science programmes for BBC Radio 3[8] and Radio 4.[9]

In 2020, Wragg Sykes published Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art[10] which won the 2021 Current Archaeology Book of the Year Award,[11][12] the 2021 Hessel-Tiltman History Prize, the 2022 Public Anthropology Award from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and the 2022 President's Award from The Prehistoric Society. Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love Death and Art was also a finalist in the 2022 Premio Galileo Awards and has been favourably reviewed by Current Archaeology,[13] London Review of Books,[14] Nature,[15] The Guardian[16] and The New York Times;[17] reviews have been published in other media outlets as well.[18][19][20]

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, thought Wragg Sykes had done "a remarkable job synthesizing thousands of academic studies into a single accessible narrative".[17] Alice Roberts, author and presenter of the television series The Incredible Human Journey, said it was "a wonderful portrait of these enigmatic, long-lost relatives".[10] Writing in The Sunday Times about the best philosophy and ideas books of the year 2020, James McConnachie praised how it reveals the latest theories about Neanderthal life, from the tools they used to the funerals they performed.[21]

Wragg Sykes has also written for DK and was one of the authors for the book Big History,[22] although she and the other authors were "aligned with" the OER Project rather than members of the organization.[23]

TrowelBlazers

In 2013, Wragg Sykes started, together with other female scientists, the TrowelBlazers project, a public-led experiment in participatory archaeology, originating from the lack of visibility of women in science. TrowelBlazers has highlighted women from the fields of archaeology, geology and palaeontology.[24]

References

  1. ^ "Michael Cashman, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, and Roger Hutton join Humanists UK as new patrons". Humanists UK. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  2. ^ Brian Cox Meets Rebecca Wragg Sykes – The Lost World of Neanderthals, archived from the original on 1 November 2020, retrieved 28 February 2021
  3. ^ "Conversations with: Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes". Conversations in Human Evolution. 21 August 2020. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  4. ^ "Michael Shermer with Rebecca Wragg Sykes — Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art". Skeptic. 27 October 2020. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  5. ^ "Becky Wragg Sykes". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  6. ^ "Stories by Rebecca Wragg Sykes". Scientific American. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  7. ^ "Rebecca Wragg Sykes". Aeon. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  8. ^ "Family ties and reshaping history". BBC. 17 September 2020. Archived from the original on 2 January 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  9. ^ "You're dead to me". BBC. 21 November 2020. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  10. ^ a b Wragg Sykes, Rebecca (2020). Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. London: Bloomsbury Sigma. ISBN 978-1472937490.
  11. ^ "Current Archaeology Awards". Current Archaeology. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  12. ^ Julian Richards (5 March 2021). "Current Archaeology Awards 2021". Current Archaeology. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  13. ^ "Review – Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death, and art". Current Archaeology. 21 September 2020. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  14. ^ Lanchester, John (17 December 2020). "Twenty Types of Human". London Review of Books. Vol. 42, no. 24. ISSN 0260-9592. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  15. ^ Glausiusz, Josie (18 August 2020). "Horse eyeballs and bone hammers: surprising lives of the Neanderthals". Nature. 584 (7821): 342–343. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-02420-3. S2CID 221146679.
  16. ^ "Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes review – a new understanding of humanity". The Guardian. 20 December 2020. Archived from the original on 28 February 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  17. ^ a b Harari, Yuval Noah (7 November 2020). "At Home With Our Ancient Cousins, the Neanderthals". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  18. ^ "Book Review: A Fresh Look at Our Neanderthal Relatives". npj Science of Learning Community. 13 November 2020. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  19. ^ "'Kindred' Dismantles Simplistic Views Of Neanderthals". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  20. ^ Pomeroy, Emma (27 October 2020). "A nuanced portrait of Neanderthals encourages empathy and understanding". Books, Et Al. Archived from the original on 28 February 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  21. ^ McConnachie, James (29 November 2020). "Best philosophy and ideas books of the year 2020". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  22. ^ Bohan, Elise; Dinwiddie, Robert; Challoner, Jack; Stuart, Colin; Harvey, Derek; Wragg-Sykes, Rebecca; Chrisp, Peter; Hubbard, Ben; Parker, Phillip; et al. (Writers) (February 2016). Big History. Foreword by David Christian (1st American ed.). New York: DK. ISBN 978-1-4654-5443-0. OCLC 940282526.
  23. ^ "Big History by DK: 9780744048445". Penguin Random House. 2022. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  24. ^ Hassett, B.; Birch, S.P.; Herridge, V.; Sykes, R.W. (2018). "TrowelBlazers: accidentally crowdsourcing an archive of women in archaeology". Shared Knowledge, Shared Power. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology: 129–141. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68652-3_9. ISBN 978-3-319-68651-6.