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Department of Anthropology

Genevieve Dewar

Genevieve Dewar, a white woman with brown hair wearing thick tortoiseshell glasses and hoop earrings smiles at the camera
Professor and Associate Chair
Email
genevieve.dewar@utoronto.ca
Telephone number
cell 416-985-0366
Building HL 312
Website
AMEMSA

Affiliations

  • SAA (Society for American Archaeology)
  • PASC (Paleoanthropology Society of Canada)
  • ASAPA (Association of South African Professional Archeologists)
  • SAfA (Society of Africanist Archeologists) Executive member
  • AAPA (American Association of Physical Anthropologists)
  • CAPA (Canadian Association of Physical Anthropologists)

Teaching Interests

  • Introduction to Anthropology: Becoming Human
  • Bioarchaeology
  • Human Origins: New Discoveries
  • Human and Primate Comparative Osteology
  • Advanced Topics In Human Osteology

Research Interests

  • Origins and development of Modern Human Behaviour
  • Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age
  • Bioarchaeology
  • Subsistence strategies
  • Settlement patterns

Awards and Grants

2017    Co-Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation, Senior Research Grant. Early Adaptations to High Mountain Systems: The Pleistocene Peopling of Highland Lesotho. USD$192,000

2015 Principle Investigator, SSHRC Insight Grant, Human landscape use during Marine Isotope Stage 3 and Marine Isotope Stage 2 in southern Africa, $263,299.

2013 Principle Investigator, UTSC VPR Competitiveness Fund, Palaeoenvironmental analysis of Spitzkloof Rockshelter $9,950.

2013 Replicas of human remains. UTSC CTL Teaching Equipment Grant. $5,475.

2012 Co-director, McDonald Institute D.M. McDonald Grants and Award Fund, 'Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age', 5,000GBP, Dr. Brian Stewart, PI

2011 Principle Investigator, SSHRC Standard research grant, 'Crossroads in the desert: Pleistocene forager adaptations to marginal environments', $102,059

2010 Co-director, Wenner-Gren, 'Middle Stone Age of the Lesotho Highlands' $17,000, Dr. Brian Stewart, PI

2010 Co-director, McDonald Institute D.M. McDonald Grants and Award Fund, 'Middle Stone Age of the Lesotho Highlands', 4,500GBP, Dr. Brian Stewart, PI

2009 Principle Investigator, SSHRC Environmental Grant, 'Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age' $37,390.

Publications

Dewar, G., MacKay, A., Stewart, B. (2021) Sptizkloof A Rockshelter. (In) the Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa: Hominin behaviour, geography, and chronology. Springer.

Pazan, K., Dewar, G., and Stewart, B.A. 2021. The Last Interglacial-aged (~80 ka) Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages from Melikane Rockshelter, highland Lesotho. Quaternary International.

Dewar, G., Halkett, D., and Sealy, J. 2020. Human burials from the Somnaas farm, Namaqualand, South Africa and their archaeological implications. Southern African Archaeological Bulletin 75 (213):111-119.

Stewart, B., Zhao, Y., Mitchell, P., Dewar, G., Gleason, J.D., and Blum, J.D.  2020. Charting late Pleistocene social networking in southern Africa using strontium isotope geochemistry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1921037117

Mathieson, I., Abascal, F., Vinner, L., Skoglund, P., Pomilla, C., Mitchell, P.,   Arthur,C., Gurdasani, D., Willerslev, E., Sandhu, M., Dewar, G. 2020      Ancient baboon genome demonstrates long-term population continuity in   southern Africa. Genome Biology and Evolution. doi/10.1093/gbe/evaa019/5727765

Arthur, C., Mitchell, P., Dewar, G., and Shaw, B. 2018. After the silt: middle and late Holocene hunter-gatherer archeology of the Metolong Dam, Lesotho. Southern African Humanities. 31:129-179.

Scheib, C.L., Li, H., Link, V., Pinotti, T., Kendell, C., Dewar, G., et al. 2018.Ancient human parallel lineages within North America contributed to a coastal expansion. Science. Doi: 10.1126/science.aar6851

Dewar, G and Marsh, E. 2018. The comings and goings of sheep and pottery in the coastal desert of Namaqualand, South Africa.  Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2018.143853

Hopper, C., Sealy, J., & Dewar, G. 2017. Little Ice Age drought event  reconstructed from isotopic analysis of archaeological springbok. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. Doi.     10.1016/j.palaeo.2017.09.019

Dewar, G., and Stewart, B.A. 2017. Early maritime desert dwellers in Namaqualand, South Africa: a Holocene perspective on Pleistocene peopling. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 12(1): 44-64.

Schillaci, M., Kopris, C., Wichmann, S., and Dewar, G. 2017.  Linguistic clues to Iroquoian prehistory.  Journal of Archaeological Research  73 (3) 448-485.

Dewar, G., and Stewart, B.A. 2017. Early maritime desert dwellers in Namaqualand, South Africa: a Holocene perspective on Pleistocene peopling. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 12(1): 44-64.

Dewar G. and Stewart, B.A. 2016. Paleoenvironments, sea level changeand settlement in Namaqualand, South Africa during MIS 6-2. In: Stewart, B. and Jones. S. (Eds.) Africa during stages 6-2: population dynamics and palaeoenvironments. Vertebrate Paleobiology and
Paleoanthropology. New York: Springer Press. pp. 195-215.

Stewart, B.A., Parker, A.G., Dewar G.I., and Morley, M. 2016. Follow the Senqu: afromontane foragers in late Pleistocene Lesotho. In: Stewart, B. and Jones, S. (Eds.), Africa during stages 6-2: population dynamics and palaeoenvironments Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. New York: Springer Press. pp. 247-273.

Loftus, E., Stewart, B.A., Dewar, G., and Lee-Thorp, J. 2015. Stable isotope evidence of MIS 3 to middle Holocene palaeoenvironments from Sehonghong, eastern Lesotho. Journal of Quaternary Research. 30(8): 805-816.

Dewar, G. 2014. Book Review of (Ed.) Ludnomir Lozny. 2013. 'Continuity and Change in cultural adaptation to mountain environments: from prehistory to contemporary threats.' Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation. New York: Springer Press. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 38: 333-335.

Dewar, G. and Orton, J. 2013. Subsistence, settlement, and material culture on the central Namaqualand coastline In: A. Jerardino, D. Braun, and A. Malan (Eds.) The archaeology of the west coast of South Africa. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 84 British International Reports Series 2526: 109-123.

Dewar, G., Reimer, PJ., Sealy, J., and Woodborne, S. 2012. Holocene marine reservoir effect correction (ΔR) for the west coast of South Africa. The Holocene. 22 (12): 1438-1446.

Stewart, B.A., Dewar G.I. Morley, M., Inglis, R., Wheeler, M., Jacobs, Z. and Roberts, R. 2012. Afromontane foragers of the late Pleistocene: site formation, chronology and occupational pulsing at Melikane Rockshelter, Lesotho. Quaternary International 270: 40-60.

Dewar, G and Stewart, B. 2012. Preliminary results of excavations at Spitzkloof Rockshelter, Richtersveld, South Africa. Quaternary
International 270: 30-39.

Meul, T., Dewar, G., and Schillaci, M. 2011. The Meul Index: a nondestructive method for estimating the cortical index in skeletal samples. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 21: 243-246.

Dewar, G. and Pfeiffer, S. 2010. Approaches to estimation of marine protein in human collagen for radiocarbon date calibration. Radiocarbon. 52 (4): 1611-1625.

Dewar, G., Ginter, J., Shook, BAS., Ferris, N,. Henderson, H., 2010. A Bioarchaeology study of a Western Basin Tradition Cemetery on the Detroit River. Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (9) 2245-2254

Dewar, G. 2010. Late Holocene burial cluster at Diaz street midden, Saldanha Bay, Western Cape, South Africa. South African
Archaeological Bulletin 65 (191): 26-34

Dewar, G. 2009. Book Review of ‘Smith, A. 2006. Excavations at Kasteelberg and the Origins of the Khoekhoen in the Western Cape,
South Africa. British Archaeological Reports International Series S1537â Azania 44 (2): 270-271.

Jerardino, A., Dewar, G., and Navarro, R. 2009. West coast hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies during the Late-pottery period: Borrow Pit Midden, Baboon point, Elands Bay. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 4: 37-60.

Dewar, G. 2008. The Archaeology of the coastal desert of Namaqualand, South Africa: a regional synthesis. British Archaeological Reports International Series S1761

Dewar, G. and Jerardino, A. 2007. Micromammals: when humans are the hunters. Journal of Taphonomy 5 (1): 1-11.

Dewar, G., Halkett, D., Hart, T., Orton, J., and Sealy, J. 2006. Implications of a mass kill site of springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) in South Africa: hunting practice, gender relations and sharing. Journal of Archaeological Science. 33:1266-1275.

Dewar, G. and Pfeiffer, S. 2004. Positional behaviour used by Later Stone Age people from South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 59: (180) 52-58.