Climate Change and Human Evolution: Problems and Prospects

Friday, February 17, 2012: 1:30 PM-4:30 PM
Ballroom A (VCC West Building)
Climate change has long been invoked as an explanation for important events in human evolution. However, it is only very recently that our data and methods have advanced to the point where we can begin quantifying the impact of climate change on hominin speciation, adaptation, and migration. This session will bring together leading paleoanthropologists, paleontologists, and climate scientists to present the current state of knowledge concerning climate change over the last 7 million years, discuss the strategies we might use to develop testable hypotheses about the way climate change may have influenced hominins and their ecosystems, and identify the theoretical questions and methodological challenges that should be prioritized in the short to medium term.
Organizer:
Mark Collard, Simon Fraser University
Co-Organizer:
Bernard Wood, George Washington University
Discussant:
Susan Antón, New York University
Speakers:
Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria
Climate Change: Middle Pleistocene Through to the Holocene
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