My Natural History Hero Dorothea Bate
**UPDATE: you can now listen to the programme online here**
The BBC have very wisely decided to make a programme all about one of my favourite scientists, Dorothea Bate. It’s only 15 minutes long, mind, which means it can only scrape the surface. But I get to wax lyrical about her, and how she has directly influenced my work, and how I’ve been able to follow in her footsteps – literally. And even better, her biographer Karolyn Shindler, is involved so the historical content should be top notch.
It’s on at 13:45 on the 30th September on Radio 4, and is one of the 10 programmes in the Natural History Heroes series running on BBC Radio 4 from the 28th September. **UPDATE: Listen online & read more about the programme here**
In the meantime, here is a short youtube video about my research on the world’s smallest mammoth here (with nice shots of the fossils and the ‘beastly hot’ trip to Cape Maleka):
And here are two posts I wrote about Dorothea Bate for TrowelBlazers:
The Dynamite Discoveries of Dorothea Bate — yes, she really did use dynamite. I wish she had used less.
Dorothea Bate & the Star(key) of Bethlehem — Dorothea’s excavations in Bethlehem in the 1930s, and how she was royally screwed over (technical term) by James Starkey.
But really, the best place to start for a proper Dorothea Bate-fest is with Karolyn Shindler’s excellent biography Discovering Dorothea. Criminally it is out of print, but you can still buy a second hand copy. PUBLISHERS! It is time for an updated edition!
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Natural History Heroes: Dorothea Bate will be broadcast at 13:45 on the 30th September on BBC Radio 4. Details here