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Biography

Career Profile

• Internationally renowned researcher and curator of Quaternary mammals. 
• Successful scientific communicator and broadcaster. 
• Committed emissary of the Natural History Museum.  
• Effective manager and team player of 38 years experience.  
• A widely experienced field excavator specialising in cave investigations.  
• Has actively enhanced the Natural History Museum's holdings of fossil microvertebrates, (formerly under-represented in collections) by large-scale field collecting and greatly furthered mammalian biostratigraphy as a means of ordering British Late Pleistocene sequences. 
• Member of the core group of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) research team.

Employment history at the Museum:

• Curator of Quaternary Mammals (Grade 3)
• Curator of Quaternary Mammals (Grade 4)
• Higher Scientific Officer 1982-1996
• Scientific Officer 1977-1982
• Scientific Assistant 1971-1977

Additional responsibilities: Captain of Outreach for the Department of Palaeontology, 1999 to 2004

Qualifications: 

BSc (Hons) Zoology and Geology, London.

Research and curation

I joined the staff of the Natural History Museum in 1971 and have spent my entire Museum career working with the Quaternary mammal collection. I am actively involved in both curation and research.

Curatorial interests

• My curatorial interests are centred on upgrading the quality of information associated with museum materials and promoting the care and use of nationally important collections. 
• In the recent past I have helped restore the fossil mammal collections at Taunton Museum. 
• I have been very actively involved in collecting new material for the national collections. I am a specialist cave excavator with wide experience of the recovery and interpretation of cave faunas. 

Research interests

• My primary research interests are in the Quaternary mammals of Northern Europe and southern South America, vertebrate biostratigraphy and the nature of the terrestrial fossil record. 
• My research has included working with Dr Roger Jacobi on Late Pleistocene faunal history in Britain and its bearing on the history of human settlement.
• Since October 2001 I have been a member of the core team of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain research programme (AHOB) led by Prof. Chris Stringer and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. A highly successful programme, it has received extra funding until 2013.
• I am a research associate of the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London.

Publications

I have over 100 publications.

Full bibliography PDF (40.9 KB)

Most recent:

2010

Jacobi, R. and Currant, A. (2010) The Late Pleistocene Mammalian Palaeontology and Archaeology of Mendip. pp. 45-84 in: Lewis, J. (ed.) The Archaeology of Mendip. (in press).

Currant, A. (2010) The Dangers of Curation. Set in Stone: The NHM Palaeontology Newsletter. 17(1): 8.

2009

Currant, A., Mills, A. and Ayre, N. (2009) The Barnstaple Fossil Elephants - some old finds from Barnstaple, Devon are given a new airing. Magazine of the Geologists' Association, 8(4): 21-2.

2008

Stringer, C. B., Finlayson, J. C., Barton, R. N. E., Fernandez-Jalvo, Y., Caceres, I., Sabin, R. C., Rhodes, E. J., Currant, A. P., Rodriguez-Vidal, J., Giles-Pacheco, F. and Riquelme-Cantal. J. A. (2008) Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(38): 14319-14324.

2007

Gilmour, M., Currant, A., Jacobi, R. and Stringer, C. (2007), Recent TIMS dating results from British Late Pleistocene vertebrate faunal localities: context and interpretation. Journal of Quaternary Science, 22(8): 793-800.
2006

Cranbrook, Earl of, Davison, G. W. H. and Currant, A. P. (2006) Quaternary mammal fossils in Borneo: retraction and review. The Sarawak Museum Journal, 62(83 n.s.): 107-119.

Currant, A. P., Jacobi, R. M. and Rhodes, E. (2006) A new look at the Pleistocene sequence at Brean Down, Somerset and some observations on the earlier part of the Last Cold Stage in Western Mendip. pp. 25-30. in: Hunt C.O. and Haslett, S.K. (eds.) Quaternary of Somerset. Field Guide. Quaternary Research Association, London.

[Currant. A.], 2006, Mammals of the Ice Age. Second Nature, 18: 8-9.

2005

Currant, A. (2005) In the bunker. NHM, The Magazine for Supporters of the Natural History Museum, 6: 25.

Currant, A. (2005) The Piltdown ‘cricket bat’. NHM, The Magazine for Supporters of the Natural History Museum, 6: 12.

Currant, A. (2005) Collections Management. Set in Stone. The NHM Palaeontology Dept. Newsletter, 3 (2): 4-5.

Currant, A. (2005) Pleistocene and the Ice Age. pp 493-498 in: Selley, R.C., Cocks, L.R.M. and Plimer, I. R. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Geology. Volume 5. Elsevier, Oxford.