She received her Doctorate 1992 at Cologne University, Germany and began her academic career as a researcher with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum.
[1] In the same year she became Director of the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for the Evolution of Human Behaviour what was then the Forschungsbereich Altsteinzeit.
[3][4] Her work demonstrated for the first time the variety of prey exploitation strategies during the Pleistocene and that hominin hunting as a behavioural pattern can be traced back to 1.4 million years ago.
[3] Her research makes important contributions to zooarchaeological methodology, taphonomy and archaeological site formation processes.
[5][6] Furthermore Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser worked on the evolution of settlement behaviour and social interaction in early anatomically modern human societies.