CV
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Selected popular science and other writing
2022
The Guardian Opinion on Neanderthals and the Nobel Prize
Broadcast Magazine Close Encounters in the Fourth Dimension
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​The New York Times [Review] What Made Our Species Unique: Walking
The Times How accurate is The Dig?
Aeon Sheanderthal
BBC History Extra The Neanderthal In The Mirror
Anthropology News Ten Things Archaeology Can Tell Us About Neanderthals
Current Archaeology The Outermost West: Neanderthals in Britain.
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Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Bloomsbury Sigma
Time Much of What We Thought About Neanderthals Was Wrong. Here's Why That Matters.
BBC Science Focus Did Neanderthals Have a Society?
Big Issue Why We Were Wrong About The Neanderthals
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The Neanderthal Renaissance AEON magazine, March 2019
Opinion piece for Guardian on Mary Anning and upcoming Ammonite film
Ancient Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid unearthed in Siberian cave BBC Focus magazine, September Issue 326
Rethinking the Neanderthals BBC Focus magazine, July Issue 324
Trowelblazers: Raising our trowels to pioneering women archaeologists, Current Archaeology magazine, February Issue 324
2016-2017
Prehistory consultant for Dorling Kindersley Big History, History Year by Year, History Map by Map.
Why archaeology needs to come out of the cave and into the digital age Guardian Science Blogs, December
Trowelblazers: women have been digging geosciences longer than you think Guardian Science Blogs, November
Who invented clothes? A Palaeolithic archaeologist answers Guardian Science Blogs
2012 Time is Not Made to Flow in Vain: Eternity and Apocalypse in Assynt and Mars and Re-igniting the Fire: Challenge and Chance in Science Career Trajectories Guest Blogger at Scientific American
Personal blog, The Rocks Remain
Day of Archaeology, various posts 2011-2017
Creative and consulting projects
2022
Scientific consultant for television production company
2020
Research consultant and story developer for feature film company
Researcher for The National Trust
2015-2019
Project director and creative collaborator for Raising Horizons exhibition (on behalf of TrowelBlazers).
2019
Led Women Write Science workshop for British Science Week (British Science Foundation).
Consultant for Time STEAM project with Dr P. Hommel, Oxford University, building new networks for embedding prehistory teaching within UK primary curriculum.
Consultant for Heart(h) project to connect The School of Archaeology with the Oxford Playhouse theatre in exploring performative aspects of prehistoric craft and materials (with Dr Pete Hommel, funded by TORCH).
Interview for Stefan Milo history and anthropology YouTube channel.
Interview for Beatrice Hillman, novelist
2018
Designed panels for National Trust at Avebury's Breaking Ground exhibition (on behalf of TrowelBlazers)
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Selected public communications
2021
BBC Radio 4's Infinite Monkey Cage, and Front Row ;
Bill Nye's Science Rules! podcast; New Scientist Weekly podcast; Current Archaeology Live; Leakey Foundation Origins Stories podcast; Alan Alda's Clear and Vivid podcast; BBC History Extra lecture
2020
BBC Radio 4 Start the Week; You're Dead To Me; BBC Radio 3 Freethinking; In conversation with Brian Cox, How To Academy; CBC Quirks and Quarks; Smithsonian Institution seminar; Tides of History podcast; Symbiosis conference; American Museum of Natural History seminar; Hong Kong Literary Festival; Science Salon podcast with Michael Shermer; History Hit Live ; Travels Through Time podcast; Life Lessons Festival; Who Were The Neanderthals? New Scientist; History Hit Podcast: The Neanderthals; New Scientist Instant Expert Human Origins day
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2019-8
Interviews and comments in media concerning archaeological discoveries e.g. The Times, The Atlantic, RealClear Life
2018
Guest on The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry, BBC Radio 4
Guest on podcast Science for the People
Panellist at PopPalaeo exhibition and public discussion event
Featured in Cosmic Superheroes portrait exhibition.
2016
Invited panellist at British Science Festival
2014
Profiled in Cosmos Magazine
Academic
2020 Honorary Fellow, University of Liverpool.
Scientific committee for SETI session at 43rd COSPAR Assembly (Committee on Space Research) Finding Life beyond Earth: Modern methods for technosignature searches
2018 Invited member of Anthropology Working Group for Breakthrough Listen project.
2016-18 Fellow of Society of Antiquities
2013-2015 Université de Bordeaux, Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship
2013-11 University of Manchester, Honorary Research Fellow
2005-2012 Various seminars, invited lectures at Universities of Bristol, Derby, Chester, Sheffield.
Education
PhD, University of Sheffield, 2010
MA Archaeology of Human Origins, University of Southampton, 2004
BA Archaeology, 2003
Academic publications (since 2015)
Nelson, E., Kubicka, A., Nowell, A. and Wragg Sykes, R. Forthcoming. Sexual Behaviour In Neanderthals. In T. K. Shackelford (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology. Cambridge University Press
Hassett, B., Herridge, V., Pilaar Birch, S. and Wragg Sykes, R.M. 2019. Activism from the Archives: Changing Narratives to Engage New Audiences. In: Jameson, J. H. and Musteaţă, S. (eds) Transforming Heritage Practice in the 21st century. Springer.
Hassett, B., Herridge, V., Wragg Sykes, R.M. and Pilaar Birch, S. 2018. TrowelBlazers: Accidentally crowdsourcing an archive of women in archaeology, In: Apaydin, V. and Johnston, J. (eds) Increasing Heritage Awareness through Participatory Public Archaeology. Springer.
Wragg-Sykes, R.M., Delvigne, V., Fernandes, P., Piboule, M., Lafarge, A., Defive, E., Raynal, J.P., 2017. “Undatable, unattractive, redundant”? The Rapavi silcrete source, Saint-Pierre-Eynac (Haute-Loire, France): challenges studying a prehistoric quarry-workshop in the Massif Central mountains. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports.
Wragg Sykes, R.M. and Will, Manuel. 2017. Guest Editorial – Silcrete as a lithic raw material in global context: geology, sourcing and prehistoric techno-economics. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Wragg Sykes, R.M. 2017. Isolation, Exploration or Seasonal Migration? Investigating technological organisation in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Britain during Marine Isotope Stage 3. In Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change. (Eds. E. N. Robinson, F. Sellet). Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation. Springer.
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Wragg Sykes, R.M. 2017. Neanderthals in the Outermost West: technological adaptation in the Late Middle Palaeolithic (re)-colonization of Britain, Marine Isotope Stage 4/3. Quaternary International.
Delvigne, V., Fernandes, P., Piboule, M., Chomette, D., Defive, E., Lafarge, A., Liabeuf, R., Moncel, M-H., Wragg Sykes, R., Raynal, J.P. 2016. Circulation du silex barrémo-bédoulien depuis le Paléolithique moyen de Vivarais en Velay par les monts du Mézenc. Ardeche Archeologie 33, 11-18
Ruebens, K and Wragg Sykes, R.M. 2016. Spatio-temporal variation in Late Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal behaviour: British bout coupé handaxes as a case study. Quaternary International.
Wragg Sykes, R.M., Riel-Salvatore, J., Pilaar Birch, S. 2015. Reconstructing hunter-gatherer mobility: building new inter disciplinary frameworks in the Quaternary- 1502P. Quaternary Perspectives 22 (1): 9.
Wragg Sykes, R.M. 2015. To see a world in a hafted tool: birch pitch composite technology, cognition and memory in Neanderthals. In Settlement, Society and Cognition in Human Evolution: Landscapes in the Mind. (Eds F. Coward, R. Hosfield, M. Pope, F. Wenban-Smith). Cambridge University Press