The Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UConn, presents “Ancient Human Evolution During the Late Middle Pleistocene in Armenia,” a lecture by Dr. Daniel Adler, UConn Department of Anthropology. The lecture will be held at the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History on the UConn Storrs Campus, Sunday, December 6, at 1 pm.
The Late Middle Pleistocene (130,000–425,000years ago) was a period of profound biological and behavioral change among ancient humans that witnessed the evolution of our species, Homo sapiens in Africa and our close cousins the Neanderthals in Eurasia. These biological changes were accompanied by important changes in stone tool technology, most notably the gradual replacement of large cutting tools and hand axes by tools produced by an innovative flaking method. During 2008 and 2009, Dr. Adler and his team excavated over 3,000 artifacts produced by both methods. These artifacts chart the earliest transition from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Middle Palaeolithic between 325,000–335,000 years ago. These results are significant because they support the idea that changes in human technology resulted from a common technological ancestry rather than the expansion from Africa of a particular human species armed with a new innovative technology.
This program is free and advanced registration is not required. To contact the Museum, visit http://www.cac.uconn.edu/mnhcurrentcalendar.html or call 860-486-4460.
For more information, contact: Natural History Museum at 860.486.4460