Anthropology and Culture Experts Discuss Human Origins at LA Conference
The news of the recently discovered ancient European hominin bone fragment, as reported in the March 27, 2008 scientific journal Nature, has raised more questions about human origins. This important find comes at a time when some of the world’s most respected thinkers and researchers in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, biology and other fields will have the opportunity to discuss its significance at the interdisciplinary “What Makes Us Human?” conference in Los Angeles, April 28 – 29, 2008.
The opening session of the conference, titled Human Origins, will include talks from noted scholars and experts in archaeology and biological anthropology, as well as a panel discussion on the origins of the human animal. During the two-day conference, audience members will have the opportunity to query the speakers directly on related interdisciplinary research topics.
The toothed jawbone fragment raises new questions about human origins. Some claim it is the oldest human ancestor fossil found to date in Europe, yet experts note that older Eurasian fossils, including skulls, were found a decade ago near Dmanisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. As a result, some scientists and biological anthropology researchers are rethinking their ideas on the widely accepted human model of evolution and occupation of Europe.
“This new find underscores both how little we know about earliest human ancestry, and also how deep the period of human occupation of Europe is,” says Craig Stanford, Chair of Anthropology at the University of Southern California.
Stanford, who is also Co-Director of USC’s Jane Goodall Research Center, will join Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History and Donald Johanson, discoverer of the 3.2 million-year-old Lucy skeleton and founder/director of the Institute of Human Origins, on the Human Origins panel. Archaeologist and anthropologist John Shea will also join the panel, which will discuss different views on the origins of the modern human.
Animal behavior expert and biologist Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal, C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Center, will give the keynote address. De Waal, famed for drawing parallels between primate animal and human animal behavior, will focus instead on what sets the human animal apart from the primates.
The “What Makes Us Human?” conference will encourage interdisciplinary research and collaboration in six other sessions, titled Curiosity and Language, Religion and Belief, Humor, Creativity, Biology and the Brain, and The Dark Side.
The conference will be held at the Herbert Zipper Concert Hall at The Colburn School. “This is an exciting subject for me and wonderful to have it at the School,” says Miguel Angel Corzo, President and CEO of The Colburn School. Corzo, the recipient of UNESCO’s distinguished Medal of Patron of the Arts, will head the Creativity panel.
Other panelists include John Allman, Antonio Damasio, Marc Hauser, David Hulme, William Hurlbut, Christine Kenneally, Bruce Lahn, Charles Pasternak, Arnold Schwartzman, Bruce Weber, and other experts in psychology, religion, culture, arts, philosophy, emotions, biological anthropology and human/animal behavior.
Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=729817
Contact Edwin Stepp www.vision.org Vision Media Productions 476 S. Marengo Avenue Pasadena, CA 91101 Phone (24 hrs): 626 535-0444 ext 105
SOURCE: Vision Media