Zenobia JACOBS

Position:  ARC QEII Research Fellow
Room:  41.269
Phone No:  +61 2 4221 3633
Email:  zenobia@uow.edu.au

Research Interests

• Development of optically stimulated luminescence dating techniques for individual sand grains
• Extending the age range of luminescence dating of quartz
• Timing of the anatomical and behavioural origins of Homo sapiens in Africa and their dispersal ‘Out of Africa’
• Quaternary environmental change and its impact on the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens
• Comparing the behaviour of Homo sapiens in Africa and Neanderthals in Europe

Representative Publications

Lombard, M., Wadley, L., Jacobs, Z., Mohapi, M., Roberts, R.G. (2010). Still Bay and serrated points from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 1773-1784.

Bar-Matthews, M., Marean, C.W., Jacobs, Z., Karkanas, P., Fischer, E., Herries, A.I.R., Brown, K., Williams, H.M., Bernatchez, J., Ayalon, A., Nilssen, P.J., A high resolution and continuous isotopic speleothem record of paleoclimate and paleoenvironment from 90 to 53 ka from Pinnacle Point and the south coast of South Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 29, 2131-2145.

Brown, K. S., Marean, C. W., Herries, A., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Braun, D., Roberts, D. L., Meyer, M. C. & Bernatchez, J. (2009). Fire as an engineering tool of early modern humans. Science, 325 (5942), 859-862.

Jacobs, Z. & Roberts, R.G. 2009. Human history written in stone and blood. American Scientist 97, 302-309.

Jacobs, Z. & Roberts, D.L. 2009. Last Interglacial age for aeolian and marine deposits and the Nahoon fossil human footprints, southeast coast of South Africa. Quaternary Geochronology 4, 160-169

Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R.G., Galbraith, R.F., Deacon, H.J., Grün, R., Mackay, A., Mitchell, P., Vogelsang, R., Wadley, L. (2008). Ages for the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Implications for Human Behaviour and Dispersal. Science 322, 733-735.  (PDF reprint of this paper, abstract or full text)

Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R.G. (2008). Testing times: old and new chronologies for the Howieson’s Poort and Still Bay industries in environmental context. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10, 8-33.

Jacobs, Z. (2008). Luminescence chronologies for coastal and marine sediments. Boreas 37, 508-535.

Jacobs, Z., Wintle, A.G., Duller, G.A.T., Roberts, R.G., Wadley, L. (2008). New ages for the post-Howiesons Poort, late and final Middle Stone Age at Sibudu, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35, 1790-1807.

Marean, C.W., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J., Fisher, E., Goldberg, P., Herries, A.I.R., Jacobs, Z., Herardino, A., Karkanas, P., Minichillo, T., Nilssen, P.J., Thompson, E., Watts, I., Williams, H. (2007). Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449, 905-908.

Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R.G. (2007). Advances in optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of individual grains of quartz from archaeological deposits. Evolutionary Anthropology 16, 210-223.

Henshilwood, C. S., d'Errico, F., Yates, R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Duller, G. A., Mercier, N., Sealy, J. C., Valladas, H., Watts, I. & Wintle, A. G. (2002). Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science 295 1278-1280.

Searchable Publication List

Awards

INQUA Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal (2009)

L’Oreal For Women in Science (Australia) Fellowship (2009)

Inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Emerging Researcher Award (UOW, 2008)

Most Promising Young Researcher Award, Environmentek, Council for Science and Industrial Research, South Africa (2004)

Current Students

Luke Gliganic: PhD - The Stone Age Archaeological record of Africa: Geochronology and Environmental Change

Siti Aishah Ar. Azmi: PhD – Luminescence Investigations of Malaysian Archaeological Sites

Christina Neudorf: PhD – Monsoons and Migrations: Quaternary Climates, Landscapes and Human Prehistory of the Indian Subcontinent

Nathan Jankowski: PhD – Chronologies in context: in situ single-grain OSL dating of archaeological sediments.

Elspeth Hayes: Honours – Extending the chronology for Blombos Cave, South Africa: further evidence for the origins of modern human behaviour

Abbreviated CV

2010-2014: ARC QEII Fellow, Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong

2009-2010: Senior Research Fellow, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong

2006-2008: Research Fellow, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong

2005: Senior Researcher, Council for Science and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa

2004: Researcher, Council for Science and Industrial Research, South Africa

2004: University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Dyfed, United Kingdom, PhD in Geography

1999: University of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, B.A. (Honours) in Archaeology

1998: University of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, B.A. in Archaeology and Geography and Environmental Sciences