Dr Sarah Wurz
Dr Sarah Wurz
Curator of pre-colonial archaeology
15 January 1963
Dr Sarah Wurz is curator of pre-colonial archaeology at the Social History Collections Department of Iziko Museums of Cape Town.
Her chief research interest is the evolution of the mind. To establish how modern thinking came about, she has studied the history of anatomically modern humans and their Middle Stone Age artefacts, including the stone tools, bone tools and shell beads found at important Western Cape sites, such as Klasies River and Blombos Cave. She is also investigating the evolutionary origins of music – how an ability to sing and make music may have helped social bonding and the development of a symbolic mnemonic strategy.
Wurz is a Doctor of Philosophy in Archaeology (DPhil), who studied at South Africa's University of Stellenbosch. She also holds a BA Honours in Counselling Psychology and an MA Music Science cum laude. She has worked as a school teacher, an archaeology and tourism heritage lecturer, a heritage database developer and specialist at the South African Heritage Resources Agency.
Her research and theories have been published in numerous books, journals and newsletters, including the Journal of Archaeological Science, the South African Archaeological Bulletin and From Tools to Symbols (Colorado University Press). She is currently working on a paper titled "The fossil evidence for the evolutionary origins of music."
Wurz is a member of the Association for Southern African Professional Archaeologists.
