Zenobia Jacobs is a South African-born archaeologist and earth scientist specialising in geochronology.
[citation needed] She was awarded the International Union for Quaternary Research's Sir Nick Shackleton Medal in 2009.
[2] Jacobs' research traces the evolutionary history of humans using single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating.
[3][4] Her work on the Denisovans and Neanderthals has helped establish a timeline of when the two groups of archaic humans were present in southern Siberia and the environmental conditions they faced before going extinct.
[5][6] She has also contributed to reconstructions of past environments in Africa,[7] using ancient high sea-levels as analogues for future trends,[8][clarification needed] and studies of the ecological footprint of the first humans to reach Australia[9] and Madagascar.