Sonia Mary Cole (née Syers) (1918 – 1982) was an English geologist, archaeologist, anthropologist and author.
Biography Sonia Cole was born Sonya Syers in Westminster, London, her mother marrying the 5th Earl of Enniskillen as her second husband, and Sonia herself marrying his nephew, the 6th Earl. Cole worked for the British Museum, and conducted extensive fieldwork in Africa. She was a close friend and colleague of Mary Leakey, who wrote her obituary.
David Lowry Cole, 6th Earl of Enniskillen (1918–1989) was divorced from his first wife Sonia in 1955. By her, he had issue one son and one daughter.Patrick Cracroft-Brennan. Enniskillen, Earl of (Ireland, 1789) , cracroftspeerage.co.uk; retrieved 5 January 2013.The Enniskillen entry is somewhat outdated, in showing Arthur Gerald Cole still alive in 2013; he died in 2005, and his son Berkeley is the present heir presumptive.
Cole is most remembered for her work Races of Man, which drew heavily from Carleton Coon."Review: Races of Man", Stanley M. Garn, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 6, Dec., 1963, pp. 1410-1411.
Works An Outline of the Geology of Kenya (1950) The Prehistory of East Africa (1954, 2nd ed. 1958, rev. ed. 1964) Races of Man (1963, 2nd ed. 1965) The Neolithic Age (1970) Leakey's Luck (1975)
References