Sigma Xi Public Talk
The origins and early evolution of modern humans in southern Tanzania
Presented by Pamela R. Willoughby , Professor University of Alberta, Canada.
Over the past two decades, genetic, palaeo-ontological and archaeological research has confirmed that the earliest members of our own species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, during the Middle Stone Age.
Their descendants spread out of the continent around 50,000 years ago, interbred with the indigenous Neanderthals and Denisovans of Eurasia, and ultimately populated the globe. By this time, they had developed a much more complex material culture, which includes the earliest examples of jewelry, organic tools, art, and more complex burials. Newly discovered archaeological sites in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania have produced a long record of human occupation, possibly spanning the last 300,000 years. One may also include evidence of human survival during the genetic bottleneck which almost led to our extinction. These sites offer an important case study of how early hominids became both biologically and culturally modern, and what might have triggered the "out of Africa" dispersal.
5:00 pm, Thursday, September 19, 2013
Room C, UNM Conference Center
Northeast corner of Indian School and University
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