Dr Elisa Bandini

I am the principle investigator of the ERC-funded PRIMERS group, based at ICArEHB (The University of Algarve, Portugal). Our research focuses on the evolution of tool-use in both human and non-human primates, and the implications of this behaviour for the evolution of human culture and cognition. To investigate this question, we adopt an interdisciplinary approach, using theory and methods from archaeology, primatology, anthropology, biology and psychology. Via experiments and fieldwork with various non-human primates (including macaques, capuchins and chimpanzees), we aim to generate a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of primate tool-use, culture and cognition. 

Before moving to ICArEHB, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Sciences, at The University of Zürich, Switzerland, as part of the Animal Behaviour Group. My work there focused on understanding the effect of life history traits, development, learning, and experience on chimpanzee, capuchin and macaque cognition. My research was funded by The University of Zürich postdoc grant, the Suslowa postdoc fellowship, and The Einstein Foundation Award. My work on the Ape Research Index project, which examines the effect of research experiments on captive chimpanzees, is on-going and will continue now that I am settled in Portugal. 

Before Zürich, I was a postdoc in the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at The University of Tübingen, Germany, working on the cognitive drivers of tool-use across human and non-human primates. My background is in archaeology (with a BA in archaeology from The University of Bristol, UK and an MSc from The University of Edinburgh, UK), however my work is inherently interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of archaeology, primatology, anthropology, primate archaeology, biology and psychology.