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Bio
Amanda Esterhuysen is an Associate Professor of Archaeology in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental studies, and Head of the Origins Centre. She obtained her MA (with distinction) and PhD (Science) from Wits. Her principal research focus is the recent historical past, and contemporary issues affecting the practice of archaeology. Over the last 10 years her main research focus has been on building a comprehensive understanding of the siege of 1854 based on the analysis of the physical remains excavated from Historic Cave in the Makapans Valley World Heritage Site, and of the documented and oral recollections of the event. To this end she produced a body of knowledge that has challenged historical perspectives and broadened archaeological insights. Her work is part of a ground swell of South African studies that have moved beyond ascribing identity to sites and objects, towards using archaeology to better understand the broader political and historical relationships at play. To this end she was integral in motivating for and enabling greater collaboration between archaeologists, historians, anthropologists and oral historians, particularly those working within southern Africa, and with an interest in the last 500 years. She co-edited the first conference proceedings of this initiative. Other research outputs have focused on South Africa’s changing socio-economic priorities and how this is impacting on the practice of archaeology, and affecting communities’ relationships with their sacred sites, and cultural landscapes.
She was a member of the late Kadar Asmal’s Ministerial History project (2000), and is currently serving on the Minister of Education’s History Task Team, tasked with re-writing the school history curriculum. She has a particular interest in the teaching of evolution in South Africa, and has a long association with the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (CoHWHS). In 1996 she was tasked by the National Department of Education to establish whether human evolution could be taught in the classroom. This demonstrated amongst other things that Christian National Education not only prevented the teaching of evolution it actively perpetuated a racist creationist ideology. This research resurfaced in a volume edited together with Philip Bonner and Trefor Jenkins (A Search for Origins. Science, History and South Africa’s ‘Cradle of Humankind’) that focused on the relationship between politics and the science of human evolution. This book was listed on the Alan Paton long list in 2008. In 2007 she published a booklet on Sterkfontein through Wits University Press. In 2002/3 she worked for Mahube consortium to produce a cultural heritage survey of the CoHWHS, and edited the public version of this document (The Cradle of Humankind. The Home of our Ancestors). In 2013 at the request of the management Authority she was appointed through GAPP architects to be part of a team developing a coherent plan for development on the COHWHS, and to rewrite the storyline for Maropeng. After the conceptual work was done, she worked with architects 24/7 to develop the exhibitions for Hominin House, the Experience Lab, and other recreational areas, and with 24/7 and Totem to complete the redesign of the Maropeng main exhibition. In 2018 she applied and was appointed to manage the Origins Centre on behalf of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies. in 2020 she was appointed as Head of Origins Centre to broaden its focus and establish the museum as a viable University entity.
Research Interests
Papers共 36 篇Author StatisticsCo-AuthorSimilar Experts
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SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETINno. 213 (2020): 173-173
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Interrogating Human Originspp.279-292, (2019)
SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETINno. 211 (2019): 112-119
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Jennifer M. Fitchett,Jasper Knight,Marion K. Bamford,Hayley Cawthra,Amanda Esterhuysen,Lynne J. Quick, J. Francis Thackeray
semanticscholar(2017)
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Amanda B. Esterhuysen, Shannon K. Hardwick
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#Papers: 37
#Citation: 219
H-Index: 8
G-Index: 14
Sociability: 4
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