Sandi R. Copeland, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Denver (2011-2012) Sandi's UCD profile
Adjunct Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder (2008 - present)
Associate Researcher - Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany (2010 - present)
Adjunct Faculty - Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Lakewood, CO (2011)

Email: sandicopeland(at)gmail.com

Areas of expertise: biological anthropology, archaeology, strontium isotopes, paleoanthropology, South Africa, East Africa

I am an anthropologist specializing in the ecological context of human evolution. My research focuses on early hominin interactions with plants, animals, climate, and other aspects of the environment, particularly in Africa. My recent paper in Nature (2011) documents the first direct evidence for landscape use among early hominins (19 individuals of ~2 million-year-old Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus) and indicates that females, rather than males, dispersed from their birth communities (see Press for popular news coverage). I have also documented the distribution of wild plant foods that were potentially available to early hominins in East African savannas.

My latest research uses strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) to investigate landscape use of hominins and other animals. Strontium isotope ratios differ between bedrock types, and the unique strontium isotope ratio of a particular bedrock passes into the soils, plants, and animals that feed in that area. By measuring strontium isotope ratios in teeth that form at different ages within an animal, we can track movements of the animal as it migrates across different bedrocks.

I have also helped to develop new methods for strontium isotope research, such as the use of laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) on teeth. I have experimented with methods for documenting biologically available strontium isotopes across modern and ancient landscapes. I conducted pilot studies of strontium isotope ratios for use with the 36,000-year-old Hofmeyr skull from South Africa, and I am pursuing hominin landscape use projects in northern Tanzania and the Cape Region of South Africa.

In my earlier research, I excavated 1.8 million-year-old sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and spent a year studying the distribution of wild plant foods in Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and Lake Manyara National Park. I have also compared the wild plant foods of these semi-arid East African savannas to the plant foods eaten by modern chimpanzees in other, generally moister habitats around Africa.