Julia Anne Lee-Thorp, (born 20 April 1951) is a South African archaeologist and academic. She is Head of the Stable Light

Isotope Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numb ...

Laboratory and Professor of Archaeological Science and Bioarchaeology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Lee-Thorp is most well known for her work on dietary ecology and human origins, using stable isotope chemistry to study fossil bones and teeth.

Early life and education

Lee-Thorp was born on 20 April 1951 in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. Studying at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, she graduated with

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

(BA),

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

(BSc) with a major in chemistry, and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(PhD) degrees. Her

doctoral thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

, titled "Stable carbon isotopes in deep time: the diets of fossil fauna and hominids," was completed in 1989 and demonstrated a method by which to significantly increase the applicable time-span of carbon isotopic analysis by using the mineral form of calcified animal tissue ( apatite) as the sample material instead of traditionally used collagen.

Academic career

Lee-Thorp remained at her alma mater, working as a senior research officer at the University of Cape Town's Archaeometry Research Unit (1991 to 1997). She was a senior lecturer in its Faculty of Science from 1998 to 2000 and an associate professor from 2001 to 2004. She was appointed Professor of Archaeology in 2005. In 2005, she moved to the United Kingdom to take up the post of research director of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

. She joined the University of Oxford in 2010 as Professor of Archaeological Science and a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of St Cross College, Oxford. She has served as Vice-Head of the

School of Archaeology The School of Archaeology is an academic department of the University of Oxford comprising the Institute of Archaeology and the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), and is part of Oxford's Social Sciences Division ...

from 2014 to 2016, and has been its Head since 2016.

Research

Lee-Thorp has been involved in a number of projects in Africa, South America, and Europe. In addition to diet, her more recent research has focused on the role of changing environment, climate, and farming techniques on ancient human societies. Currently, she is involved in the Paleodeserts Project, The Agricultural Origins of Urban Civilization (AGRICURB), and Building a Better Eggtimer.

Honours

In 2013, Lee-Thorp was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with State (polity), state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but ...

for the humanities and social sciences. She is also a Fellow of the

Royal Society of South Africa The Royal Society of South Africa is a learned society composed of eminent South African scientists and academics. The society was granted its royal charter by King Edward VII in 1908, nearly a century after Capetonians first began to conceive ...

Selected works

* * * * * *Lee-Thorp J.A., N.J. van der Merwe 1987. Carbon isotope analysis of fossil bone apatite. S. Afr. J. Sci. 83: 712-713 *Lee-Thorp J.A., N.J. van der Merwe 1991. Aspects of the chemistry of modern and fossil biological apatites. J. Archaeol. Sci. 18: 343-354. *Lee-Thorp J.A., N.J. van der Merwe, C.K. Brain 1994. Diet of Australopithecus robustus at Swartkrans deduced from stable carbon isotope ratios. J. Hum. Evol. 27: 361-372. *Sponheimer M. J.A. Lee-Thorp 1999. Reconstructing the diet of the early hominid Australopithecus africanus using ¹³C/¹²C analysis. Science 283: 368-370. *Roberts P., N. Perera, O. Wedage, S.Deraniyagala, J. Perera, S. Eregama, M.D. Petraglia, J.A. Lee-Thorp (2018) Fruits of the Forest: human stable isotope ecology and rainforest adaptations in Late Pleistocene and Holocene (c. 36 to 3 ka) Sri Lanka. Journal of Human Evolution. *Snoeck, CS, J Pouncett, P Claeys, S. Goderis, N Mattielli, M. Parker Pearson, C Willis, A. Zazzo, JA Lee-Thorp, RJ Schulting. 2018 Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales. Scientific Reports 8:10790. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28969-8 *Czermak A, L. Schermellah, JA Lee-Thorp 2018 Short report: Image-assisted time-resolved dentine sampling to track weaning histories. DOI: 10.1002/oa.2697 *Ecker M, JS Brink, L Rossousw, M Chazan, LK Horwitz, JA Lee-Thorp 2018 The palaeoecological context of the

Oldowan The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...

–Acheulean in southern Africa, Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2: 1080-1086. *Lee-Thorp, J.A., M. Ecker. 2015. Holocene environmental change at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa: Insights from stable light isotopes in ostrich egg shell. African Archaeological Review. DOI 10.1007/s10437-015-9202-y *Lee-Thorp J.A., A. Likius, T.S. Mackaye, P. Vignaud, M. Sponheimer, M. Brunet 2012. Isotopic evidence for an early shift to C₄ resources by Pliocene hominids in Chad. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 109 (50): 20369-20372.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee-Thorp, Julia Living people British archaeologists British women archaeologists University of Cape Town alumni Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Society of South Africa People from Cape Town Fellows of St Cross College, Oxford South African archaeologists Academics of the University of Bradford Academic staff of the University of Cape Town 1951 births