THE OTHER DR BONES

Explorer, biological anthropologist, paleoanthropologist, archaeologist… These are just some of the words that describe Dr Keneiloe Molopyane. But if you asked her mom, she’d tell you her daughter is Lara Croft meets Indiana Jones, minus the Nazis and assassins. ‘I do cause a bit of stress for my parents, but they love it,’ Keneiloe says, laughing.

The year 2021 was a wild one for Bones, as she’s known to her friends and social media followers (in references to the character Dr Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan in the TV series by the same name). It was the year that saw her selected as one of 15 global changemakers to comprise the 2021 National Geographic Society’s Emerging Explorer cohort, being immortalised as a superhero in the SuperScientists collection of trading cards, and becoming the first black South African woman to be granted a permit to excavate in the Cradle of Humankind. On top of that, she graduated with a PhD in biological anthropology from Wits University. But all this has been in the making for