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General Lectures
Evolution and Spread of the Most Cooperative and Invasive Species: Us
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Leakey Lecture presented in partnership with the Leakey Foundation
Dr. Curtis W. Marean, Arizona State University
Join Dr. Curtis W. Marean for an exploration of our human origins during this special Leakey Lecture.
Scientists have identified several milestones in the evolution of the way humans find and consume food: increased meat portions, diet diversity, and the transition to food production. These changes have had far-reaching impacts on biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution.
In this talk, Dr. Marean argues for another food-related milestone: the turn toward foraging dense and predictable food resources. This shift in behavior led to elevated levels of group territoriality and conflict, which may have provided the ideal conditions for the evolution of the hyper-cooperative behaviors unique to modern humans.
Curtis W. Marean is professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the associate director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.
Marean is interested in the relation between climate, environmental change, and human evolution, both for its significance as a force driving past human evolution and as a challenge to be faced in the near future. This is a natural transdisciplinary topic that thrives at the intersection of archaeology, geology, geochemistry, geochronology, and climate and environmental sciences. His work has been focused on developing methods that tap the synergy between the disciplines to bring new insights to old scientific problems. He has spent over twenty years doing fieldwork in Africa. with the goal of illuminating the final stages of human evolution—or how modern humans became modern.