Students

Micheal Halley

(BA 2012)

Michael completed his BA with Dr. Sam Challis in 2012, and was subsequently hired as a technical specialist on the MARA programme.

Rae Regensburg

(Bsc Hons 2012, MSc 2013-2015)

Rae completed her Honours degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. Her thesis analysed the cultural remains from the site of Mafusing, where she assisted in excavations. Currently, Rae is pursuing a Masters degree at the University of Cape Town under the supervision of Dr. Simon Hall, exploring on the expansion of European farmers into the arid interior Karoo environments of South Africa, focusing on the Mordenaars Karoo region.

Alice Mullen

(BSc Hons in prog 2013-5)

Alice completed her undergraduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. In the course of this degree, she worked with the MARA programme, tracing and re-drawing rock art images from the site of Sethotseleng ('the place of ghosts'). She is currently pursuing an Honours degree supervised by Dr. David Pearce, looking at superpositioning in a rock art site from Maclear.

James Pugin

(BSc Hons 2012, MSc 2013-2016)

James' Masters research focused on using remote sensing techniques to further advance rock art surveying. These techniques culminated in the production of a predictive model that succefully delineated areas of higher likelihood. The model was applied to the MARA survey area and subsequently to Sehlabathebe National Park, as part of the UNESCO world heritage survey commisioned by the Lesotho government.

James completed his undergraduate and Honours degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Supervised by Dr. Sam Challis, his Honours project focused on improving methods of rock art survey, using Google Earth and GIS advances. The process he developed focused on shelter identification as a means of finding likely locations for rock art. He is currently working on his Masters thesis under the guidance of Dr Challis, focusing on predictive modelling and similar processes in GIS.

Former Students

Current Students

Andrew Skinner

(BSc Hons 2013)

Andrew Skinner completed his BSc. at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. He is now undertaking an Honours degree supervised by Dr. Sam Challis, focusing on depictions of violent interactions in the San rock art of the south-eastern mountains of South Africa. Drawing on insights from psychology, he is examining the extent to which San treatments of such subjects in their art can be considered attempts to make comprehensible their experiences of colonial violence and to deal with individuals affected by these traumatic events.

Nthabiseng Mokoena

(BSc Hons 2012, Masters 2013-2015)

Nthabiseng Mokoena completed her Honours degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. Supervised by Dr. David Pearce, her work analysed the imagery at the rock art site ARAL 258, in the Metolong catchment area in Lesotho, focusing particularly on the depiction of ostriches found here. She has subsequently progressed to a Masters course under the supervision of Dr. Sam Challis, examining community relationships with heritage sites (with a particular focus on rock art sites) in the Matatiele region.

Mncedisi Siteleki

(BA 2013, BSc Hons 2014, MSc 2015)

Mncedisi Jabu Siteleki has just completed his Honours project in Matatiele, through the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand.

His Dissertation: 'Plant Power and Land Use in the Maloti-Drakensberg: a case study in GIS and IKS in Matatiele, Eastern Cape, South Africa'has won the 4th Annual ESRI Young Scholar Award, and his prize is a ticket to San Diego, California, to deliver his presentation at the ESRI Conference.

He has been part of the MARA project since 2011 as a volunteer. He has been helping with surveys and recording rock art sites in the field, Eastern Cape. He is currently tasked with managing the MARA database with fellow colleagues.