Human Biology and the Origins of Homo
Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 6
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2223099 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leslie C Aiello (0000-0001-9546-0963, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | S6 |
| Pages | S267-S268 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/667709 |
| OpenAlex | W1987957046 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 10 |
Next article FreeHuman Biology and the Origins of Homo Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 6Leslie C. AielloLeslie C. Aiello Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreHuman Biology and the Origins of Homo is the 143rd Wenner-Gren Symposium and the sixth to be published as an open-access supplement of Current Anthropology. The symposium was organized by Susan C. Antón (New York University) and Leslie C. Aiello (Wenner-Gren Foundation) and was held March 4-11, 2011, at the Tivoli Palácio de Seteais in Sintra, Portugal (fig. 1).Figure 1. Participants in the symposium "Human Biology and the Origins of Homo." Front: Laurie Obbink, Susan Antón, Leslie Aiello, Rick Potts, Andrea Migliano, Jonathan Wells, Peter Ungar. Middle: Katie MacKinnon, Jennifer Smith, Karin Isler, Karen Steudel, Susan Pfeiffer. Back: Josh Snodgrass, Trent Holliday, Gary Schwartz, Tom Schoenemann, Herman Pontzer, Carel van Schaik, Mike Plavcan, Chris Kuzawa, Chris Rainwater, Rick Bribiescas.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointWenner-Gren symposia are intensive week-long workshop meetings that traditionally focus on big questions in the field of anthropology, and the origin of Homo is currently one of the biggest questions in the field of hominin paleontology. Although Homo erectus has been known since the 1890s (Pithecanthropus erectus; Dubois 1894) and Homo habilis was announced almost 50 years ago (Leakey, Tobias, and Napier 1964), new fossil discoveries in the last decade have complicated our understanding of early Homo and challenged our long-held assumptions about its similarities and differences to the australopiths as well as to later members of our genus. This necessarily influences our interpretations for the origin and evolution of Homo and also highlights the need for a new framework for interpretation of the hard evidence.The purpose of this symposium was to meet this challenge. The aims were to assess what is currently known about the fossil evidence and the environmental context of early Homo and to set the stage for integrated, multidisciplinary studies to provide a framework for interpretation of the hard evidence. The basic premise of the meeting was that it is essential to have a solid understanding of how and why modern humans and other animals vary in order to understand the adaptive shifts involved with the evolution of Homo. Participants in the symposium included paleoanthropologists, human biologists, behavorialists, and modelers, and, to our knowledge, this is the first time that such a varied multidisciplinary group has gathered to focus attention on a major question in hominin evolution.The collection of papers is introduced by Aiello and Antón (2012), who summarize the current state of our knowledge about the origin of Homo, integrate the varied contributions, and give a taste of the potential that this approach has for human evolution. The concluding paper by Antón and Snodgrass (2012) draws from the wealth of ideas in this collection and provides a fresh perspective on three important shifts in human evolutionary history: (1) the emergence of Homo; (2) the transition between non-erectus early Homo and H. erectus; and (3) the appearance of regional variation in H. erectus. It concludes with a new positive feedback model for the origin and evolution of Homo that involves critical elements such as cooperative breeding, changes in diet, body composition, and extrinsic mortality risk that drive life history.This symposium builds on the long history of the Wenner-Gren Foundation with hominin evolution. Foundation interest began in the 1940s with "The Early Man in Africa" program (1947-1955) that was initiated by Fr. Teilhard de Chardin to call attention to the extraordinary significance of the human origins in southern Africa, to date the southern Africa cave deposits, and to facilitate multidisciplinary team research. The "Origins of Man" program followed (1965-1972), under the guidance of Walter William (Bill) Bishop, C. K. (Bob) Brain, J. Desmond Clark, Francis Clark Howell, Louis Leakey, and Sherwood Washburn, and the Foundation continues to be an enthusiastic supporter of human origins research (see Wood 2011 for a history of this support).Since the late 1950s, the Foundation has held a number of paleoanthropological symposia that have led to landmark publications. These include Social Life of Early Man (Washburn 1961), African Ecology and Human Evolution (Howell and Bourlière 1963), Classification and Human Evolution (Washburn 1964), Background to Evolution in Africa (Bishop and Clark 1967; Clark 1967), Man the Hunter (Lee and Devore 1968), Calibration of Hominoid Evolution: Recent Advances in Isotopic and Other Dating Methods as Applicable to the Origin of Man (Bishop and Miller 1972), After the Australopithecines: Stratigraphy, Ecology, and Culture Change in the Middle Pleistocene (Butzer and Isaac 1975), Earliest Man and Environments in the Lake Rudolf Basin: Stratigraphy, Paleoecology, and Evolution (Coppens et al. 1976), and Early Hominids of Africa (Jolly 1978).To continue this tradition, the Wenner-Gren Foundation is always looking for big questions and innovative new directions in all areas of anthropology for future Foundation-sponsored and Foundation-organized symposium meetings and eventual CA publication. We encourage anthropologists to contact us with their ideas for future meetings. Information about the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Symposium program can be found on the Foundation's Web site (http://wennergren.org/programs/international-symposia).References CitedAiello, Leslie C., and Susan C. Antón. 2012. Human biology and the origins of Homo: an introduction to supplement 6. Current Anthropology 53(S6):S269-S277.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarAntón, Susan C., and J. Josh Snodgrass. 2012. Origins and evolution of genus Homo: new perspectives. Current Anthropology 53(S6):S479-S496.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarBishop, Walter William, and J. Desmond Clark, eds. 1967. Background to evolution in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarBishop, Walter William, and J. A. Miller, eds. 1972. Calibration of hominoid evolution: recent advances in isotopic and other dating methods as applicable to the origin of man. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarButzer, Karl W., and Glynn L. Isaac, eds. 1975. After the australopithecines: stratigraphy, ecology, and culture change in the middle Pleistocene. New York: de Gruyter.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarClark, J. Desmond, ed. 1967. Atlas of African prehistory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarCoppens, Yves, Francis Clark Howell, Glynn L. Isaac, and Richard E. F. Leakey, eds. 1976. Earliest man and environments in the Lake Rudolf Basin: stratigraphy, paleoecology, and evolution. Prehistory Archeology and Ecology Series. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarDubois, Eugene. 1894. Pithecanthropus erectus, eine menschenaehnliche Uberegangsform aus Java. Batavia: Landesdruckerei.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHowell, Francis Clark, and François Bourlière, eds. 1963. African ecology and human evolution. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 36 (Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research). Chicago: Aldine.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarJolly, Clifford J. ed. 1978. Early hominids of Africa. New York: St. Martin's.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarLeakey, Louis S. B., Phillip V. Tobias, and John R. Napier. 1964. A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202:7-9.First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarLee, Richard B., and Irven DeVore, eds. 1968. Man the hunter. Chicago: Aldine.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarWashburn, Sherwood L., ed. 1961. Social life of early man. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 31 (Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research) Chicago: Aldine.First citation in articleGoogle Scholar---. 1964. Classification and human evolution. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 37 (Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research) Chicago: Aldine.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarWood, Bernard. 2011. Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of human evolution. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarNotesLeslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor North, New York, New York 10016, U.S.A.). Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number S6December 2012Human Biology and the Origins of Homo Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/667709 Views: 417Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref (c) 2012 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Leslie C. Aiello Fire and the Genus Homo: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 16, Current Anthropology 58, no.S16S16 (Aug 2017): S163-S164.https://doi.org/10.1086/692275Ainara Sistiaga, Richard Wrangham, Jessica M. Rothman, Roger E. Summons, Roscoe Stanyon New Insights into the Evolution of the Human Diet from Faecal Biomarker Analysis in Wild Chimpanzee and Gorilla Faeces, PLOS ONE 10, no.66 (Jun 2015): e0128931.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128931Leslie C. Aiello Alternative Pathways to Complexity: Evolutionary Trajectories in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 8, Current Anthropology 54, no.S8S8 (Jul 2015): S173-S175.https://doi.org/10.1086/673284Adam P. Van Arsdale A Shifting Theoretical Framework for Biological Anthropology in 2012, American Anthropologist 115, no.22 (May 2013): 262-272.https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12008
Archaeology · Art history · Environmental ethics · Homo erectus · Humanities · Sociology · Anthropology · Evolution and Paleontology Studies · History · Philosophy · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Primate Behavior and Ecology
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2017 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |