Becca Peixotto

Peixotto obtained a BA in Slavic Area Studies from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.[1] She pursued further studies abroad at the University of Amsterdam, obtaining an MA in Discourse and Argumentation Studies. She returned to the U.S. to attend the American University in Washington DC where she earned a MA in Public Anthropology. Peixotto is currently working on her PhD at the American University where she is "focusing on historical archaeology and resistance landscapes of the Great Dismal Swamp".[1]

In October 2013, Peixotto and five others were chosen to be part of a specialized excavation team for the Rising Star Expedition.[5] The purpose of the twenty-one day expedition, sponsored by The National Geographic Society and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg was to excavate fossils which had been recently found in a deep cave complex in the Rising Star Cave System, near Johannesburg, South Africa..[6]

The critical skills and physical attributes sought for the excavation team by lead scientist and University of the Witwatersrand professor Lee Berger were: a " master's degree or higher in palaeontology, archeology or an associated field; caving experience; and the ability to fit through an 18-centimeter (about 7-inch) space. The six women scientists were crucial in the successful "excavation of arguably one of the most important fossil finds in human history – a new species referred to as Homo naledi.[7][8]

Peixotto, Hannah Morris, Marina Elliott, Alia Gurtov, K. Lindsay Eaves and Elen Feuerriegel, along with a team of sixty international scientists, excavated "one of the richest collections of hominin fossils ever discovered—some 1,550 fossil fragments, belonging to at least 15 individual skeletons."[5]

• Dawn of Humanity