Rob Kenyon

I began at the University of Sheffield as a mature student in 2015, following a career in the British Army. On completing an MSc in Palaeoanthropology in 2020, I spent a year working in archaeological geophysics, following which I spent time in the UK Civil Service.  In 2023, I was fortunate enough to obtain funding from the White Rose College for Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) to undertake PhD research.

My academic interests are centred around environmental impacts on hominid evolution and better understanding the presence and evolution of archaic hominin species through Pleistocene Southeast Asia; this also extends to hominid evolutionary theory, site prospection and evolutionary ‘outcasts’.  My undergraduate research looked at reviewing and identifying potential hominin sites across Middle Pleistocene Southeast Asia and my master’s dissertation (which was restricted by COVID-19) focused on methods of Hominid species identification from isolated dentition, again focusing on Southeast Asia.  I have also been closely involved with identifying potential Neanderthals sites across the north of England.  

The aim of my PhD research is to better understand the hominin-environmental relationship in Middle Pleistocene, Mainland Southeast Asia, looking specifically at Northern Vietnam. My research will combine a range of approaches to model the distribution of open and closed environments throughout the Middle Pleistocene, and evaluate the relationship between such environments and identified archaeological sites. The results will provide insights into the nature of environmental change and hominin evolution in the region and will allow for further evaluation of hypotheses that closed-canopy tropical forests represented a barrier to mobility for archaic hominin species.