Professor Christopher Stuart Henshilwood
Researching the Middle and Later Stone Age in Africa, Professor Christopher Henshilwood has excavated more than 20 archaeological sites in southern Africa, with a special focus on sites that were occupied by Homo sapiens more than 50 ka (1 000 years ago). His research and ground-breaking discoveries have challenged accepted paradigms regarding the evolution of human behaviour in Africa and imposed new standards on the analysis of prehistoric material culture.
Henshilwood obtained BA and honours degrees from the University of Cape Town, and read for a PhD degree in archaeology at the University of Cambridge. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at UCT before moving to the State University of New York, where he worked as an adjunct associate professor, and then to Norway’s University of Bergen as a professor. He spent time with the Southern Cape Archaeology Trust and the South African Field School Program before joining the French CNRS Program as research member. He currently holds a DST/NRF Research Chair in Human Origins, is a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. From 2010-2015 he was principal investigator for the European Research Council’s FP7 Grant Programme.
The widely recognised impact of Henshilwood’s scientific activities has firmly placed him as a world leader in the field of modern human origins research. He currently leads research involving more than 40 foremost scientists in diverse fields in Europe, Africa, Canada and the USA. His work has included the excavation of the 100 – 60 ka levels at Blombos Cave, excavations at two new > 60 ka Middle Stone Age sites, Klipdrift Shelter and Klipdrift Cave Lower and at a c. 14 ka Later Stone Age site, Klipdrift Cave. These excavations have provided evidence for among the earliest known complex tool kits associated with the production of a pigmented compound; the earliest known use of a container (abalone shell); marine shell beads; the first engraved ochres (regarded as the oldest art); engraved ostrich eggshell, and formal bone tools.
Henshilwood has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in international journals such as Science, Journal of World Prehistory, Current Anthropology and Journal of Human Evolution. His papers have been cited more than 2 500 times. He has published two books and contributed 18 book chapters. Articles on his research have appeared in a variety of mainstream media and academic journals such as Nature, Science, National Geographic, Time and the New York Times, and he has also appeared regularly in documentaries and on television and radio around the world.
He was included in the 2014 Thomson Reuters list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds. He also received the Thomson Reuters Lifetime Research Award for being ranked among the top 1% most cited in his subject field in 2002-2012.
His leadership skills and discoveries have demonstrated the principle role that Africa played in the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens. To this end, he has been honoured by past South African presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, and in 2004 he was awarded the Chevalier dans lÓrdre des Palmes Académiques medal and order by the French prime minister for distinguished contributions to French education and culture. He was elected a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2009, and in 2013 of Academia Europaea. In 2013 he was invited to take up a Colenso Visiting Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge.