Speaker:
Steven Churchill, Dept. of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

Abstract:

• 14:00 Steven Churchill: Australopithecus sediba: game changer or "evolutionary experiment?
• 15:30 Discussion and (soft) drinks just outside the lecture hall

Abstract: The 1.98 million year old species Australopithecus sediba shares many skeletal features with penecontemporaneous and later species of the genus Homo. Some paleoanthropologists interpret these features as reflecting a close evolutionary relationship between this late australopith and members of our genus, which would in turn imply that A. sediba and other southern African Plio-Pleistocene hominins are relevant to our understanding of the adaptive behavioral and morphological shifts that occurred with the emergence of the genus Homo, and would have major implications for our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships between the various species of australopiths and early Homo. Others interpret the features shared between A. sediba and Homo as reflecting convergence (homoplasy), and see A. sediba as a southern African “evolutionary experiment” which has little or nothing to do with the origins of our genus. Rather than attempting to resolve this issue, Dr. Churchill’s lecture will explore the implications of both perspectives for our understanding of Plio-Pleistocene hominin paleobiology.

Click here for some information on Steven Churchill as well as a list of his publications.

The series featuring external speakers will take place roughly every two months on Friday early afternoons and is followed by a "happy hour". The committee organizing the seminar series consists of: Heriberto Avelino, Tobias Deschner, Wolfgang Enard, Alicia Melis, Amanda Henry and Sandra Jacob. Please contact any of them with comments or suggestions.

E-mail: instituteseminar[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www.eva.mpg.de/

Speaker:
GAO, Xing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology

Contact:
Viola Mittag phone +49 (0) 341 35 50 500

E-mail: mittag[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/

Speaker:
Rasmus Nielsen, Center for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics at the University of California-Berkeley, USA

Contact:
Anett Pechstein, +49 341 3550-504

E-mail: pechstein[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www.eva.mpg.de

Contact:
Claudia Schmidt
fax +49 (0) 341 35 50 333

E-mail: cschmidt[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/2012_ASMW/

Contact:
Claudia Schmidt
phone +49 (0) 341 35 50 329
fax +49 (0) 341 35 50 333

E-mail: cschmidt[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/english/smg/researchprojects/morphologicalcomplexity/workshop_2012/

Contact:
ALT 10 Organizing Committee
Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Germany

E-mail: ALT10[>>> Please replace the brackets with an AT sign! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Website: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/2013_ALT10/