The Bakeng se Afrika UP and Necsa teams had the great opportunity of hosting Mathilde Augoyard. Mathilde is a PhD candidate affiliated with two of our international partner institutions, the University of Bordeaux and CNRS in France. Here is what she had to say about her visit...
" Thanks to the Bakeng se Afrika project, I was able to come to South Africa for a 2-week stay, as part of my PhD study that I am currently doing at PACEA Laboratory (Bordeaux, France). On May 26, 2022, I landed in Johannesburg and the team at the University of Pretoria kindly welcomed me in their offices during the first 5 days of my stay.
Mathilde working on her Micro-CT scans courtesy of Bakeng se Afrika UP, SMU and Necsa teams.
My PhD project questions the possible link between the development of cortical bone and dentine tissues in extant and extinct hominins, and how several parameters (age, sex, origin) can influence the development of these two issues. The documented osteological collections of the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University and the University of Pretoria are therefore of great interest in this study. Thanks to the ethics committee's approval, I will improve my analytical sample by adding dozens of individuals from these two collections. During my short stay at the University of Pretoria's Medical Campus, I could access the Pretoria Bone Collection to look at the bone and dental remains (taking notes and pictures on their state of preservation, possible pathologies, etc.).
With the kind help of Meg-Kyla Erasmus and Charlotte Theye, I also had a chance to visit the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) and retrieve all the microtomographic scans of the individuals I will study during my PhD. I also had the great opportunity to visit and study the collections housed at the Ditsong National Museum in Pretoria and at the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
I took advantage of this stay in the Gauteng province to visit the beautiful Sterkfontein caves and to make a small tour of the Cradle of Humankind. Memorable!
View on the Cradle of Humankind.
It is with great pleasure that I will come back to South Africa in November to attend the Final Bakeng se Afrika meeting. I am looking forward to seeing all the warm people I met during this trip and meeting new colleagues! "
These are the words of Mathilde Augoyard and we look forward to her next visit!
Pearl Nomshado Bothma
Bakeng se Afrika Dissemination Assistant
University of Pretoria