September is Heritage Month. This year's theme is 'Reclaiming, restoring and celebrating our living heritage'. In celebration of our continent and our country's rich history and heritage, we have published a new feature focussing on the past and present stories of Africa on the Research Matters website.

The new feature explores how the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University is blazing a new trail and setting the standard for how archaeology should be practised in southern Africa. From challenging the widely-accepted narratives about ancient civilisations like Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe, to driving a transformative agenda of decolonising African archaeology through community engagement and new modern curricula, the Department is ensuring that archaeology is relevant to South Africans today.

You can access the new heritage feature by visiting www.researchmatters.up.ac.za, where you will find a short video, an infographic and interesting articles showcasing the work being done by our researchers. Please feel free to share this information widely in your own social media network and on other channels.

While you are visiting our Research Matters page, please also visit the Programmes page for more articles on how our staff and students are making their days matter at UP.

Should you want to make a contribution or inform us about a project that you feel should be featured on Research Matters, please send an email to [email protected] or [email protected]. We will ensure that your work is scheduled for upcoming features and we are looking forward to hearing from you. 

Kindly note that we will also be running media training workshops for academics who want to interact with the popular media on their research in the future. If you are interested please let us know so that we can inform you of upcoming sessions.