francesco d'errico

Francesco d’Errico is a CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) researcher at the University of Bordeaux. He was born in Italy, and studied his Masters in Anthropology and Archaeology in Turin (graduating in 1982), before completing a D.E.A at the University of Paris (1986) and obtaining his PhD in Prehistory and Quaternary Geology at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, for a study of Epi-Palaeolithic art.

He remained at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris as Assistant Reader from 1987 to 1991, becoming also a Fellow of the Fyssen Foundation, and a Fellow of the NATO-Science Program. In 1991 he joined the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum of Mainz, Germany, as a Research Associate, then in 1992 the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science in Madrid as Research Fellow. In 1992 he moved to Cambridge as a postdoctoral fellow attached to the Department of Archaeology and research associate of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, before joining the CNRS in 1994.

His main research interests are Palaeolithic art, prehistoric technology and the evolution of human cognitive abilities. Since 2003 he has directed a EUROCORE project on the archaeology of the origin of language and its early diversification.