CARTA - Anthropogeny (Audio)

Closing remarks for CARTA’s Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics symposium held in March 2009. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 16440]...

Christopher Boehm is Professor of Biological Sciences & Anthropology and Director of the Goodall Research Center at the University of Southern California. He is a cultural anthropologist with a subspe...

Christophe Boesch is Director of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. His research takes an inclusive approach, addressing the biology of chimpan...

Patricia Smith Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego. The central focus of her research has been the exploration and development of the hypothesis that the mind is the brain. Series: ...

Steve Frank is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. One of his current research projects is centered on microbial life history and sociality. The th...

Peter Hammerstein is a theoretical biologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Given his background in game theory and economics, he is interested in conflict and cooperation at the leve...

Sarah Hrdy is currently professor emerita at the University of California, Davis. She is a renowned anthropologist and primate sociobiologist who seeks to understand, step by Darwinian step, how apes...

Donald Pfaff, head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, upends our entire understanding of ethics and social contracts with an intriguing proposition: the Gold...

Peter Richerson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis, focuses on the processes of cultural evolution. Series: ...

Elaine Mardis, Associate Professor of Genetics at Washington University and Senior Research Scientist at Bio-Rad Laboratories, explores the orangutan genome. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Resea...

Richard “Ed” Green, Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, explains how and what we know about our relation to Neandertal Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and T...

Evan Eichler is an Associate Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. The long-term goal of his research is to understand the evolution, pathology and mechanisms of recent gene d...

Alysson Muotri, Assistant Professor at UC San Diego, focuses on human brain development and evolution, exploring mobile elements as generators of neuronal diversity. He is also interested in modeling...

Katherine Pollard, Associate Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and Associate Professor of Biostatistics at UC San Francisco, specializes in evolutionary genomics, in particular identifying geno...

Yoav Gilad is Associate Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. He studies genetic and regulatory differences between humans and our close evolutionary relatives, with the long-term...

Genevieve Konopka is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The focus of her research is elucidating how developmental signaling pathways are disrupted in neuropsyc...

Ajit Varki, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director of CARTA, and Co-Director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the Univ...

The site of Göbekli Tepe is well known as a settlement of the transitional phase in SW-Asia, in which the greater mobility of the Palaeolithic increasingly gave way to the more permanent settlement of...

This presentation will briefly trace 70,000 years of cultural evolution from the ancient crossing from Sunda to Sahul, via the swift continental colonization during the Ice Age, through the severe imp...

The transition from Neolithic villages to early cities marked the greatest social transformation faced by our species before the Industrial Revolution. Our ancestors had to learn how to live in new se...

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbol...

This talk provides a deep time perspective for assessing the behavioural implications of the creation of the earliest known structure and the technologies used in its making. Evidence for the earliest...

As distinct from the buildings of termites (interesting though these are), bird nests offer a more apropos point of comparison for human buildings – they are conducted by single vertebrate (or a few) ...

At a global level, Homo sapiens have reshaped the planet Earth to such an extent that we now talk of a new geological age, the Anthropocene. But each of us shapes our own worlds, physically, symbolica...

Every building – from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house – was influenced by the energy available to its architects. This talk offers a historical perspective on...

Human "place-making" began over a million years ago when early humans made the hearth the center of social life. By 450,000 years ago, they were using caves in southwest Asia and sometimes buried thei...

Lucy is one of the most famous fossils of all time. The discovery of this species had a major impact on the science of human origins and evolution. Why? What was that impact? The symposium speakers—ea...

The discovery of a 3.2-million-year-old hominin skeleton named Lucy revolutionized human evolutionary studies. Her Linnean classification as Australopithecus afarensis sparked debates on taxonomy, hig...

Lucy, discovered in 1974, revolutionized paleoanthropology, sparking interest in Africa's fossil-rich regions. This led to significant discoveries, pushing human origins records beyond six million yea...

Lucy's 50-year legacy as a superstar in human evolution is undeniable. Yet, with newer, older fossils and a growing understanding of her ancient world, her status as our ancestor is questioned. This t...

Since Lucy's 1974 discovery, African heritage management and paleoscientific research have evolved significantly. Partnerships with international organizations have supported these efforts, leading to...

Humans are a spectacular outlier among the millions of species of life on planet earth, with incredibly unique biological success. Slowly, scientists have begun to understand the traits that interacte...

The connection between paleoanthropology and primatology began with Darwin's theory of human origins. Lucy's discovery challenged existing ideas, coinciding with observations of wild primates. This sp...

Lucy's 1974 discovery reshaped our understanding of early hominins. Geological studies dated her to 3.21 million years ago. Questions arose about her life and death, leading to investigations into her...

Lucy's discovery in eastern Africa reshaped human origins research, highlighting our ancestors' diverse habitats. Initially thought vegetarians like chimpanzees, Lucy's group were adaptable omnivores....

The discovery of Lucy in 1974 gave insight into early hominin body form but lacked hand bones. Subsequent findings revealed Australopithecus afarensis hand morphology. New discoveries and research sin...

Lucy is one of the most famous fossils of all time. The discovery of this species had a major impact on the science of human origins and evolution. Why? What was that impact? The symposium speakers—ea...

Paleoanthropology is booming with discoveries, reshaping our understanding of human evolution. Lucy's 1974 find stands as a milestone, providing crucial insights into early hominins. Her species, Aust...

The savanna hypothesis suggests that early human ancestors evolved in open grasslands. Raymond Dart's 1925 discovery of Australopithecus africanus at Taung supported this idea. Lucy's 1974 discovery c...

In 1974, understanding early human evolution was limited. Lucy's discovery provided insights into one early hominin, while her species, Australopithecus afarensis, revealed broader patterns. The abund...

Owing to its morphological and temporal placement, the Lucy species, Australopithecus afarensis, plays a pivotal role in our understanding of the human evolutionary career. Though many more fossil rem...

The discovery of Lucy, a fossil from the 1970s, changed paleoanthropology. Before Lucy, scientists saw human ancestors as rough guides, not distinct species. This mindset dominated the interpretation ...

Since entering into the field of paleoanthropology in 1970, Donald Johanson has found a more focused and rigorous implementation of an expanded collaborative, multinational, transdisciplinary strategy...

Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans, not observed in other mammals. Despite being costly and risky, it is regularly performed. Scientific understanding of this p...

In the literature on lip plates in Southern Ethiopia there has been a strong emphasis on their socio-cultural importance and little information about their biocultural significance. Shauna LaTosky pro...

Across continents, material evidence of body piercing jewelry abounds in the archeological record. However, the varying procedures and processes of piercing, healing, and stretching these wounds for a...

Archaeological research in Mexico and Central America reveals insights into cultural practices, focusing on the history of body modification. Examining long-term patterns helps unravel motivations for...

This talk offers an overview of the many forms of permanent genital modifications embedded in human cultures, where they occur, the reasons why, the archaeological investigations of origins, and futur...

Bioarchaeological studies of Pleistocene populations, examining practices like tooth ablation, facial piercing, and cranial modification, contribute to our understanding of social identities and popul...

Today, permanent body modification (PBM) is very popular. Studies suggest that well over a billion living people have experienced one or more types of PBM. But what is the history of PBM? When did the...