Sarah Ranlett

Sarah Ranlett is a Post-Doctoral Associate in the Anthropology Division of the Peabody Museum at Yale University. Her work focuses on the Yale University Prehistoric Expedition to Nubia (YUPEN) collection, a legacy dataset from UNESCO’s efforts to preserve cultural heritage in Egypt before the Aswan Dam’s completion. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto’s Anthropology Department, where her dissertation explored Upper Paleolithic material use in Southwest France and its role in Paleolithic scholarship.

Education: PhD in Anthropology, University of Toronto (2022). Previous fieldwork includes sites in France, Eastern North America, and Africa, with experience at institutions like the Royal Ontario Museum and UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. She currently directs Paleolithic excavation field labs in France and contributes to the HEADS Thematic Programme for World Heritage.

Research interests emphasize legacy collections’ scholarly potential, integrating archival work and modern archaeological inquiry. Key areas include Paleolithic material culture, archaeological epistemology, and World Heritage advocacy. Her projects bridge historical and contemporary research to elevate Pleistocene sites’ global recognition.

Articles highlight studies of Aurignacian sites in France, domestic spaces, and Paleolithic technologies, alongside educational tools like the Virtual Mystery Web-tool. She also examines transnational museum collections’ significance, such as Spain’s El Castillo Cave artifacts in New York.

Awards: None explicitly listed. Grants/Advising: Active in UNESCO programs and museum-based projects. No formal advisees listed.

Labs/Teams: Field lab director for Paleolithic excavations in France; collaborator with YUPEN and HEADS initiatives.