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Evolutionary Anthropology

Our research in Evolutionary Anthropology is highly interdisciplinary and uses a range of approaches, including observational studies of humans and non-human primates, experiments on social transmission and cultural evolution, comparative analysis across societies and across species, physiology, anatomy and theoretical modelling.

Contact Research Co-ordinator: Dr Jeremy Kendal

Staff members:

Dr Andrew Allan

Professor Robert Barton

Dr Trudi Buck

Dr Rachel Harrison

Professor Russell Hill

Professor Rachel Kendal

Dr Kris (Fire) Kovarovic

Professor Ann MacLarnon

Dr Eva Reindl

Professor Jo Setchell

Dr Chandika Shrestha

Dr Duncan Stibbard Hawkes

Dr Sally Street

Dr Amanda Tan

Professor Jamie Tehrani

 

EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP SEMINARS

 

For further information, please contact Senior Research Administrator, Kate Payne (kate.payne@durham.ac.uk)

 

MICHAELMAS TERM

 

Wednesday 9 October

EARG WELCOME SESSION

3.30-5 (D216, Dawson)

 

Sally Street (Durham Anthropology)

 

Anthropocentric biases may explain research disparities between animal tool use and nest building

 

Studying non-human species objectively is inherently challenging, especially for ‘charismatic’ and ostensibly human-like behaviours. Animal tool use is a prime example: often considered a hallmark of intelligence, tool use attracts widespread attention from academic and wider audiences alike. In contrast, other behaviours that appear to involve similar manipulative skill, particularly nest building, do not seem to capture the same level of interest. Here, we reveal striking disparities in the treatment of tool use and nest building in the animal behaviour literature. We find that tool use publications have higher citation rates and make more frequent use of terminology suggestive of ‘intelligence’ and human-like cognition compared with nest building publications. Tool use articles are also more likely to be published in high-impact and cognition-focused journals than nest building articles. Further, we find that articles with more frequent use of ‘intelligent’ terminology are more highly cited, suggesting incentives for the use of illustrative language in scientific articles. Our findings are not confounded by taxonomic biases: disparities persist even within studies of great ape (Hominidae) and Corvus species. We argue that tool use does not necessarily require more complex cognition than nest building and therefore that these disparities are driven by unconscious biases among researchers, meaning that the widespread appeal of animal tool use is partly driven by anthropocentrism. 

 

Wednesday 16 October
 1-2.30 (D210)

Chris Venditti (University of Reading)

 'A new phylogenetic perspective on hominin brain size evolution'​

 

The fact that rapid brain size increase was clearly a key aspect of human evolution has prompted many studies focusing on this phenomenon, and many suggestions as to the underlying evolutionary patterns and processes. No study to date has, however, separated out the contributions of change through time within- vs. between- hominin species whilst simultaneously incorporating effects of body size. Using a phylogenetic approach never previously applied to palaeoanthropological data, we show that brain size increase across ~ 7 million years of hominin evolution arose from increases within individual species which account for an observed overall increase in relative brain size. Variation among species in brain size after accounting for this effect is associated with body mass differences but not time. In addition, our analysis also reveals that the within-species trend escalated in more recent lineages, implying an overall pattern of accelerating brain size increase through time. This new perspective on hominin brain size evolution opens a new door to robustly testing potential drivers of brain size increase. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how climate and environment drive the selection of larger brain sizes​. However, climate-environmental selective pressures are often assumed to act in isolation and rarely have between- and within-species effects been considered. Using our phylogenetic approach to test the effect of climate-environmental pressures on brain size evolution in hominins, we find that colder and more variable temperatures have a positive within-species effect on brain size evolution. However, in Homo, the strength of this effect diminishes over time, suggesting that in later species (Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis), brain sizes were less affected by climatic conditions. 

 

Wednesday 30 October

EARG: 1-2.30 (D216)

Paired writing session

 

Wednesday 13 November

EARG: 1-2.30 (D210)

Paired writing session

 

Wednesday 27 November

EARG: 1-2.30 (D210)

Paired writing session

Week 10/Wednesday 11 December

CLC407, Top floor of the Calman

 

LAYTON DIALOGUE, 3pm

Multispecies Ethnography as a forum for dialogue in anthropology’

In ‘Becoming Salmon’, Marianne Lien argues that multi-species or post-human ethnography requires a methodological toolkit that human ethnographers are not currently equipped with (2015:15). Acknowledging the sociality of non-humans is but a starting point for ethnography beyond words. Being with, alongside, and making our bodies available for communication are some of the approaches that can enact the decentering of the human. Pioneers in primatology took this approach, accompanying primates in their everyday life and making space to imagine possibilities for embodied communication. Yet such imaginative openness became unwelcome as methods of quantifying behaviour were developed. Could an approach to multi-species being and becoming be a site for dialogue across Anthropology?

Speakers:

Professor Marianne Lien, University of Oslo

Dr Kerry Dore, Millbrook School, New York

 

Discussant:

Dr Simona Capisani, Department of Philosophy, Durham

 

 

 

 

EPIPHANY TERM

 

Wednesday 15 January

1-2.30 (D210)

Seminar – internal speaker tba.

 

Wednesday 22 January

1-2.30 (D210)

Paired Writing Session

 

Wednesday 5 February

1-2.30 (D104)

Paired Writing Session

 

Tuesday 18 February

Joint EARG and Biosciences seminar (1-2)

 (L50 (Hallway between Psychology and Biosciences).

 

Julie Hawkins (University of Reading)

Topic: Evolutionary ethnobotany

 

Wednesday 26 February

DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR (DATA THEME), 3pm (CLC407, Top floor of the Calman)

Alberto Acerbi (Department of Sociology and Social Research - University of Trento)

Title TBA

 

Wednesday 5 March
 1-2.30 (D210)

Paired Writing Session