Hallo! Today is #WomenInScience Day. I want to recommend the research of a few women in my field who are at the cutting edge and whose research consistently excites me:

1- @carolyn_rando is a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist - if you ever had any interest in... 1/

Dr Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan ability to recall random facts and fascinating observations... go follow Carolyn. You are about to meet the real thing. Some academics are really good at both research AND packaging crazy factoids - she is one of them.

2- @AlMittnik is works... 2/

on ancient DNA - she is one of those academics that labours on fascinating questions and her name pops up all over fascinating research without her making a song and dance about it. So let’s make a song and dance for her. Give her a follow.

3- @Katerina__Douka is pioneering...3/

pioneering the use of ZooMS in archaeology. Archaeological digs are full of random bits of bone which can’t be assigned to a species - they are so fragmentary and in diagnostic they could belong to a bear, a human, a mouse... this technique helps ID the species and suddenly...4/

all these bones under our very noses which we thought had no real value... are *incredibly* valuable. It is a method which is endlessly exciting to me and behind some of the most fascinating discoveries.

5- @NakedPrimate a primatologist whose painstaking work on Chimps has...5/

led to fascinating observations on the meaning of Chimp gestures! I owe Cat quite a bit as her research appears in my handshake book, absolutely incredible observations of chimps shaking hands and it’s various meanings.

6- @MarieSoressi for those of you who like... 6/

excavations and Neanderthal ones at that, look at Marie’s work - having your own digs that actually produce fascinating finds is incredible, it’s also incredible to be an outsider eagerly awaiting to hear news of these finds!

7- @MMartinonT is the Director of the biggest...7/

palaeoanthropological site in Europe (Atapuerca) possibly the world. She’s also genuinely the most humble palaeoanthropologist I have ever met.

Oops I missed 4- @jfkelso who is a really big name in all things evolutionary biology from a genomics perspective and her twitter...8/

feed is a constant stream of the latest fascinating research.

There we are! Some of the most cutting edge researchers in biological anthropology (& adjacent fields). Without this caliber of researcher people like me would be unable to make TV. It would be dead air. End/

Er lots of typos in here. Apologies! But tweet 4 especially is a problem - it should read ‘Undiagnostic’ - as in there are no features preserved to help ID the bone