Carta - Center For Academic Research And Training In Anthropogeny (audio)

Peter Ungar (Univ of Arkansas) looks at the fossil record to determine what it can teach us about the diets of our early hominin forebears. Evidence from tooth chemistry and microscopic wear suggests that some species had increasingly specialized diets, but others, including those of early Homo, ate a broader variety of foods. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24838]

Alyssa Crittenden (Univ of Nevada, Las Vegas) reports on the diet composition and foraging profiles of the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. The significance of meat, tubers, and honey is addresses and the role that these food items play in evolutionary models is explored. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24837]

In this presentation, Leslie Aiello (Wenner Gren Foundation) provides some background for the discussion and defines the overall goal of the symposium, The Evolution of Human Nutrition, which is to highlight the evolution of human nutrition from our earliest ancestors to the modern day and to draw attention to the diversity in the human diet and its consequences. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24835]

Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Here Clark Spencer Larsen (Ohio State Univ) discusses The Impact of Agriculture on Human Evolution, followed by Barry Bogin (Loughborough Univ) on The Impact of Globalization on Children’s Nutrition and Alyssa Crittenden (Univ of Nevada, Las Vegas) on Current Hunter-Gatherer Diets. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24830]

Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Leslie C. Aiello (Wenner-Gren Foundation) begins with An Overview of Diet and Evolution, followed by Richard Wrangham (Harvard Univ) on Fire, Starch, Meat, and Honey Steven Leigh (Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on Diets and Microbes in Primates. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24807]

Indo-European languages are native to populations from Ireland to Afghanistan and India and, in historical times, to the Tarim Basin in China. This spread occurred within a few thousand years carried by people who were mostly horse pastoralists and who carried a mutant regulator of the lactase gene so that they could as adults digest milk sugar. Henry Harpending, University of Utah, discusses how individuals with such lactase persistence are able to extract 40% more calories from milk, while others usually ferment away the milk sugar lactose by making cheese or yogurt. While superior technology of invaders can be adapted by indigenous people, such a biological advantage cannot be copied. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24112]

In most individuals, the ability to digest lactose, the sugar present in milk, declines rapidly after weaning because of decreasing levels of the enzyme lactase in the small intestine. However, there are individuals who maintain the ability to digest milk into adulthood due to a genetic adaptation in populations that have a history of pastoralism. Sarah Tishkoff, University of Pennsylvania, presents her latest studies of the genetic basis of lactose tolerance in African pastoralist populations. Her team has identified several mutations that arose independently in East African pastoralist populations. This demonstrates a striking footprint of natural selection in the genomes of individuals with these mutations. It shows that the age of the mutations associated with lactose tolerance in Europeans and Africans is correlated with the archeological evidence for origins of cattle domestication. Thus, the genetic adaption for lactose tolerance is an excellent example of gene-culture co-evolution. Series: "CARTA

As our australopithecine ancestors moved out of receding rain forests and into drier habitats, they abandoned a primarily fruit-based diet and began consuming more meat and tubers. This increase in consumption of protein, fat, and starch coincided in time with important evolutionary changes in cognition and brain size. Gregory Wray, Duke University, discusses how genetic and genomic methods are providing insights into the relationship between these two parallel sets of adaptations. Several genes have now been identified that may have mediated a link between changes in diet and changes in behavior during human origins. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24110]

The history of human evolution and dispersal was associated with remarkable environmental challenges to those processes that maintain stable physiological conditions. Indeed, environmental change over time and over space has been a major feature of human evolution. Though many adaptations undoubtedly occurred at the cultural and behavioral levels, the striking variation of human phenotypes suggests that adaptations also involved genetic changes. Cultural changes, e.g. different modes of subsistence or diets, in turn created new selective pressures. Anna Di Rienzo, University of Chicago, has developed approaches to test for the impact that selective pressures associated with specific environmental factors have had on the human genome. Using these approaches, she and her colleagues identify adaptations to selective pressures related to climate as well as diet and subsistence. Some of these beneficial alleles were selected in multiple continents while others represent continent-specific adaptations. Interesti

In the classic nature-nurture dichotomy, nature has a stronger or weaker influence on nurture, but certainly nurture was supposed to have no impact on nature. Human culture is often taken to be a form of nurture. However, culture itself has evolutionary properties. In particular, culture generates novel environments that in turn select for novel genes. A few dramatic cases of this effect are well known and many more are suspected. Peter Richerson, UC Davis, explains why the nature-nurture dichotomy is an impediment to clear thinking and should be abandoned. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24108]

What constitutes the essential behavior of our species is contentious. Evolutionary scenarios leading to both the capacity for and practice of these essential behaviors are even more debated. Genetics, cognitive and evolutionary psychology, morphology, reconstructions of climate variation, and the archaeology of human behavior all provide pathways to explore these questions. This presentation by Alison Brooks, George Washington University, will review the evidence for the accumulation of distinctive human behaviors in a comparative framework. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24107]

Leslie Aiello (Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research) reviews the historical development of ideas in relation to the evolution of bipediality. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23670]

The fastest humans sprint slowly and for very limited durations compared to most quadrupedal mammals, but even average humans have superlative long distance running capabilities in terms of speed and distance compared to other mammals, especially in the heat. Dan Lieberman (Harvard University) posits that these abilities raise the question of how to evaluate when and how adaptations for running evolved in hominins, and what effect such selection had on the evolution of the human body. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23669]

Christopher Ruff (Johns Hopkins University) interprets the analyses of forelimb and hindlimb bone strength in a number of early hominin taxa. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23668]

Carol Ward (University of Missouri) reviews the growing, although still imperfect, evidence for torso form in apes and early hominins, and relates that to hypotheses about the origins and early evolution of hominin bipedality. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23667]

Efforts to reconstruct gait and other aspects of behavior in extinct hominins continue to be hampered by disagreements over how to interpret anatomical evidence from the fossil record. Brian Richmond (George Washington University) offers unique evidence about early Pleistocene hominin gait and foot shape based on his recent discovery of hominin footprints in the Koobi Fora Formation, Kenya (1.52 Ma). Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23666]

Jeremy DeSilva (Boston University) shares his insights into the foot and ankle diversity of australopiths and refutes the hypothesis that there is only one kinematic way to be a striding biped. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23664]

Steven Churchill (Duke University) talks about the evolution of the human pelvis and the major architectural changes which reflect an improvement in the ability of this structure to engage in bipedal locomotion. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23663]

Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Here Mary C. Stiner (Univ of Arizona) discusses Archaic Human Diets followed by Alyssa Crittenden (Univ of Nevada, Las Vegas) on Current Hunter-Gatherer Diets and Steven Leigh (Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on Diets and Microbes in Primates. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24806]

Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Here Steven Leigh (Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) discusses Diets and Microbes in Primates, followed by Peter Ungar (Univ of Arkansas) on Australopith Diets, and Alison S. Brooks (George Washington Univ) and Margaret J. Schoeninger (UC San Diego) on Neanderthal Diets. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 23436]