A research network @ the University of Oxford and beyond
Jana Muschinski
PhD candidate I Anthropology
From October 2018 I will be a first year DPhil student under the supervision of Dr. Susana Carvalho. I am interested in social transmission and tool use in primates, particularly how these areas can inform us about human evolution and adaptability. My background is primarily in paleolithic archaeology, with additional training in primate cognition. I will be studying the presence/absence of cultural behaviors among baboons in Gorongosa National Park,Mozambique. My observations will focus on social grooming, greeting behaviors, sleeping site preparation, and food processing/preparation, with particular emphasis on the latter two categories as those behaviors are most likely to leave physical traces that could be preserved in the archaeological record. I hope that this research will improve our understanding of the evolutionary origin and age of the cognitive processes necessary for cultural behaviors to arise.
Research areas: palaeoanthropology, archaeology, primatology
