Field School

Launched in 2018 as a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Gorongosa National Park, the Oxford-Gorongosa Paleo-Primate Field School is a uniquely interdisciplinary experience, providing students with training in primatology, paleoanthropology, archaeology, geology, speleology and ecology within one of the richest ecosystems in Africa, Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. The field school combines intensive classroom teaching with practical laboratory training, field observations of primate ecology and social behaviour, palaeontological surveys, and archaeological excavations. Mentoring is provided by researchers of the Paleo-Primate Project Gorongosa, with whom students have the opportunity to develop their own undergraduate or postgraduate projects. The field school aims to be as inclusive as possible: there are no tuition fees and assistance is available to students applying for small grants to cover associated travel and living expenses. Half of the students selected each year are from Mozambique, including students from the local area and Eduardo Mondlane University. The other half are selected from the University of Oxford (past participants have included students from the Human Sciences BA, Archaeology and Anthropology BA, and Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology MSc). The field school runs annually and lasts for several weeks over the summer break.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oxford-Gorongosa Paleo-Primate Field School was unable to take place 2020-2022, but we are thrilled that the field school will resume in 2023. We hosted an Information Session for the Oxford-Gorongosa Paleo-Primate Field School 2023 on Monday 23rd January 2023 and, following a very strong round of applications, have selected a number of students from the University of Oxford who will form half of the cohort and join us in Gorongosa National Park this summer. Until then, please enjoy browsing the below images and 'field words' written by past field school students.

Expressions of interest and queries relating to the Oxford-Gorongosa Paleo-Primate Field School should be emailed to paleo-primatefieldschool@anthro.ox.ac.uk.