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Full Schedule, Lecture Abstracts and Speaker Biographies

Saturday, April 28, 2012

at the California Academy of Sciences.

Greeting from the California Academy of Sciences

9:00 AM

Dr. Terry Gosliner, Dean of Science and Research Collections

Symposium Introduction

Dr. Kelly Stewart

Keynote

9:15 AM

“The Real Females of Human Evolution” by Dr. Adrienne Zihlman

Paleoanthropology Session

10:00 AM

Introduction

Dr. Leslea Hlusko

Overview Lecture

10:10 AM

“Millions of Years of Moms” by Dr. Daniel Lieberman

Case Study

10:40 AM

“The Role of Prehistoric Mothers in the Evolution of Language” by Dr. Dean Falk

Q&A

Leslea Hlusko, Daniel Lieberman, and Dean Falk

Behavioral Session

11:30 AM

Introduction

Dr. Jill Pruetz

Overview Lecture

11:40 AM

“The Natural History of Social Bonds” by Dr. Joan Silk

Case Study

“Primate Social Cognition” by Dr. Dorothy Cheney

Q&A

12:10 PM

Jill Pruetz, Joan Silk and Dorothy Cheney

Lunch

1 PM to 1:45 PM

Afternoon Keynote

1:45 PM

“The Evolution of Mothering: How Long Should A Mother Suckle Her Baby?” by Dr. Robert Martin

Hunter/Forager Session

2:20 PM

Introduction

Dr. Brooke Scelza

Overview Lecture

2:30 PM

“From Men’s Hunting to the Importance of Grandmothers: Lessions About Human Evolution From The Behavioral Ecology of Foragers” by Dr. Kristen Hawkes

Case Study

3:00 PM

“Beyond Woman the Gatherer: Women’s Cooperative Hunting, Sharing, and Social Networks in Aboriginal Australia” by Dr. Rebecca Bird

Q&A

Brooke Scelza, Kristen Hawkes, and Rebecca Bird

Symposium Wrapup

3:45 PM

Dr. Leslie Aiello

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Biographies and Abstracts

Kelly Stewart, Symposium Chairperson

University of California, Davis

Dr. Kelly Stewart is a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. During her college summers, Dr. Stewart dug up fossils in northern Kenya with Richard Leakey. She later became a student of Dian Fossey, and has been observing, thinking about, and writing about gorilla behavior and conservation ever since. She is the co-author of Gorilla Society, with her husband and research partner Dr. Alexander Harcourt.

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Keynote

The Real Females of Human Evolution

When woman-the-gatherer was first proposed as a counter to man-the-hunter, we were only beginning to understand the many faces of primate females – their role as teachers, tool users, carriers of tradition, and as the social glue in society. In ensuing decades we have learned about the skills and talents of female primates which have been key ingredients in the evolution of our species.

Adrienne Zihlman

University of California, Santa Cruz

Adrienne Zihlman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has had major impacts on the field of human evolution. Her critique of the Man-the-Hunter concept made way for understanding the role of women in evolution, an approach that has become mainstream. Her publications cover human locomotion, sexual dimorphism and growth and development. She is author of The Human Evolution Coloring Book, co-editor of The Evolving Female, and is co-authoring a book on comparative ape anatomy.

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Paleoanthropology

Leslea Hlusko, Session Chairperson

University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Leslea Hlusko earned her PhD from Penn State University in 2000. She is currently an Associate Professor Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on how genes influence skeletal variation and how this has evolved through time as seen in the fossil record, focusing on primates and human evolution. Her lab projects include gene expression studies and quantitative genetic analyses. She co-directs the Olduvai Vertebrate Paleontology Project at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

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Overview Lecture: Millions of Years of Moms

Natural selection was hard at work changing the human body over the last few million years, and much of that selection was driven by the challenges of being a mother. I will present a brief review of the evolution of the human female body, focusing on how natural selection helped mothers cope with the biomechanical demands of being a pregnant biped, with carrying infants and food over long distances, and with giving birth to large-brained babies.

Daniel Lieberman

Harvard University

Dr. Daniel Lieberman is a Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University and Chair of the Biological Anthropology Department, while also serving on the Curatorial Board of the Peabody Museum. Dr. Lieberman is recognized as a leading expert on morphology and is especially interested in when, how and why early hominins first became bipeds, and then became so exceptional as long distance endurance runners. He is a member of the Leakey Foundation Scientific Executive Committee.

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Case Study: The Role of Prehistoric Mothers in the Evolution of Language

Clues about the emergence of protolanguage appear every day in the interactions between modern parents and their infants. Parents the world over speak to infants in a special way—known as baby talk, musical speech, or motherese, which helps them acquire their native language. This presentation considers how and why motherese may have been invented by prehistoric mothers and their infants, and the possible role of infant-directed speech in the origin of language.

Dean Falk

Florida State University

Dean Falk is an evolutionary anthropologist who splits her time between Santa Fe, New Mexico where she is a Senior Scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR), and Tallahassee, Florida where she is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology at Florida State University. Her work focuses on the evolution of the human brain and cognition. Recent projects include collaborative research on Homo floresiensis (“Hobbit”) and an investigation of the brain of Albert Einstein.

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Behavioral

Jill Pruetz, Session Chairperson

Iowa State University

Dr. Jill Pruetz is the Walvoord Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Anthropology) at Iowa State University. As a primatologist, Dr. Pruetz has studied the behavior of non-human primates such as chimpanzees, spider monkeys, howling monkeys, tamarins, patas monkeys, and vervets in various locales. She is interested in the influence of ecology on primate and early human feeding, ranging, and social behavior. She currently has an ongoing research project in southeastern Senegal to study chimpanzees in a habitat similar to that of early hominids.

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Overview Lecture: The Natural History of Social Bonds

For female baboons close and stable social bonds are the foundation of cooperation. These relationships help females cope with stress, and also enhance their reproductive success and longevity. These findings parallel evidence that social ties have positive effects on physical and mental health in humans. And as with humans, for female baboons the strength and stability of these bonds are more important than their number.

Joan Silk

University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Joan Silk’s research interests are wide ranging and include biological anthropology, primate behavior, and evolutionary biology. She is especially interested in how natural selection shapes social evolution in primates. Her recent focus is on social strategies of female baboons and the origins of altruistic behavior. Dr. Silk is a prolific writer, an author of over 80 publications and co-author of a biological anthropology text, How Humans Evolved. She is a member of the Leakey Foundation Scientific Executive Committee.

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Case Study: Primate Social Cognition

Studies on both animals and humans have shown definitively that individuals who are able to establish strong social bonds experience better health and higher offspring survival. It seems likely that natural selection has also favored the cognitive abilities to monitor and manage social relationships. There is growing evidence that monkeys and other animals are adept at recognizing other individuals’ social relationships and dominance ranks. At the same time, there are also many fundamental differences between animal social cognition and the social cognition of humans.

Dorothy Cheney

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Dorothy Cheney is an expert on primate social behavior, communication, cognition. In 1977, together with her husband and collaborator Robert Seyfarth, she began an 11 year field study of vervet monkeys in Kenya, which led to the publication of How Monkeys See the World. From 1992 through 2007 Dr. Cheney and Dr. Seyfarth studied baboons in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. In 2007, they published Baboon Metaphysics.

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Afternoon Keynote

Evolution of Mothering: How Long Should a Mother Suckle Her Baby?

All primates have drawn-out life histories with long pregnancies and extended suckling. Time devoted to individual offspring more than compensates for limited daily investment in reproduction. A key part of intensive maternal care in primates is frequent suckling on demand, reflected in milk composition. In all these respects, humans are typical primates; but we also have special features, notably in brain development. But how long should a mother suckle her baby? Biological comparisons yield clues to the natural breastfeeding period for which women are adapted.

Dr. Robert Martin

The Field Museum

Dr. Robert Martin is A. Watson Armour III Curator of Biological Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago. He has devoted his career to exploring the evolutionary tree of primates, as summarized in his 1990 textbook Primate Origins. Dr. Martin is particularly interested in reproductive biology and the brain, because these systems have been of special importance in primate evolution. His research is based on broad comparisons across primates, covering reproduction, anatomy, behaviour, palaeontology and molecular evolution.

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Hunter/Foragers

Dr. Brooke Scelza, Session Chairperson

University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Brooke Scelza is an assistant professor at UCLA. A human behavioral ecologist, Dr. Scelza is interested in understanding the adaptive nature of behavior as a function of local socioecological context. Her research focuses mainly on questions related to reproductive decision-making and parental investment, and on understanding the social environment as a critical influence on how people negotiate life history trade-offs. She is currently conducting fieldwork with the Himba, a group of semi-nomadic pastoralists living in northwest Namibia.

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Overview Lecture: From Men’s Hunting to the Importance of Grandmothers: Lessons About Human Evolution from the Behavioral Ecology of Foragers

Beginning my ethnographic work with hunter-gatherers I assumed that most distinctive human features evolved as a consequence of ancestral females pairing with hunting males to form nuclear families with men provisioning their wives and dependent offspring. Challenges to that “hunting hypothesis” have mounted in paleoanthropology and archaeology, but it was behavioral findings that forced my own paradigm shift. I’ll review some of those findings, including evidence of the important role of grandmothers, and some life history comparisons between humans and chimpanzees.

Dr. Kristen Hawkes

University of Utah

Kristen Hawkes is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Her ethnographic projects with hunter-gatherers investigate sex and age differences in foraging strategies to improve hypotheses about human evolution. The importance of grandmothers’ help for youngsters when their mothers have newborns focused her attention on the evolution of human longevity, and prompted continuing comparisons of human and chimpanzee life history. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Scientific Executive Committee of the Leakey Foundation.

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Case Study: Beyond Woman the Gatherer: Women’s Cooperative Hunting, Sharing, and Social Networks in Aboriginal Australia

Gender roles among foraging peoples are usually considered to be nearly universal: that men are hunters and women gatherers of plant foods, that men are more productive than women and that women cooperate mainly with spouses in a division of labor designed to care for dependent offspring; a pattern that is rooted in our evolutionary past. I describe an alternative perspective of women as hunters who cooperate extensively in acquiring small animals, sharing food and caring for children.

Rebecca Bliege Bird

Stanford University

Dr. Rebecca Bliege Bird is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. She is an ecological anthropologist interested in the socioecology of subsistence in small scale societies. Dr. Bird pursues such topics as the gender division of labor in hunting and gathering, cooperation, costly signaling, indigenous conservation/land management, and fire ecology. She’s currently involved in a long-term ethnographic and ecological research project with Martu people in Australia’s Western Desert.

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Symposium Wrap Up

Dr. Leslie Aiello

Wenner-Gren Foundation

Dr. Leslie Aiello is the President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation of Anthropological Research, which is largest private foundation in existence devoted solely to the support of international anthropological research. She is evolutionary anthropologist with special interests in the evolution of human adaptation as well as in broader issues of evolutionary theory, life history and the evolution of the brain, diet, language and cognition. Previously Dr. Aeillo was head of University College London’s Anthropology Department and Graduate School. She is a former editor of the Journal of Human Evolution.

Produced in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences, this special symposium is generously sponsored by Jean and Ray Auel, Gordon Getty, and with support from Wells Fargo Bank.

Dr. Nina Jablonski, Professor and Head of Anthropology at Penn State

We expose it, cover it, paint it, tattoo it, scar it and pierce it. Skin mediates the most important transactions of our lives, while protecting us, advertising our health, our identity and our individuality. Join Dr. Nina Jablonski, Professor and Head of Anthropology at Penn State, as she explores the unique biological and cultural aspects of human skin and its importance as a key element of human adaptation.

Part of the American Museum of Natural History’s popular SciCafe lecture series. Enjoy cocktails, cutting-edge science, and conversation at this after-hours series, which takes place on the first Wednesday of every month.

Let us know you are coming on our Facebook page!

Wednesday May 2, 2012 @ 6:30 pm
The American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY

Free; please reserve your ticket online now.

Generous support provided by Wells Fargo Bank.

The dispersal routes of modern humans from Africa through Eurasia and into Sahul (Australia and New-Guinea) are partially known from scant isolated fossils, current genetics and ancient DNA studies.

The abundant archaeological evidence to be presented facilitates the recognition of these routes, which are marked by the discarded stone tools found, in rare cases with bone, antler and ivory objects, in sites dated to 55-45,000 years ago.

The process of colonization by the new people resulted in the demise of the local Neanderthals in Europe, western and northern Asia, and the Denisovans in Asia. However, interbreeding between the older and new populations was detected as a low percentage of Neanderthal and Denisovans genes carried by today’s people who occupy the entire vast terrestrial continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts and the islands.

Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 1:00 PM
The Field Museum, Chicago, IL
Free with museum admission; call 312.665.7400 to reserve your seat.
Generous support provided by Wells Fargo Bank.

UPDATE: If you are unable to join us in San Francisco, you can still see the symposium LIVE, online. Sign up for your conference pass today!

A human female is born, lives her life, and dies within the span of a few decades, but the shape of her life has been strongly influenced by 50 million years of primate evolution.

On Saturday, April 28 join leading scientists for a special symposium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco as they discuss the The Female in Evolution. This rich topic will be considered in the context of the three research areas funded by The Leakey Foundation; Paleoanthropology, Behavioral and Hunter-gatherers and will integrate life history, behavior, anatomy, development, and cultural identity of females.

After an introduction by primatologist Kelly Stewart, pioneering anthropologist Adrienne Zilhman will give the keynote presentation. Zihlman’s research has had major impacts on the fields of physical anthropology and human evolution. In the 1970s, her critique of the “Man the Hunter” model opened the way for researchers to incorporate the role of females in hominid biological evolution and in human cultural development, an approach that has since become mainstream.

Chaired by Leslea Hlusko, the Paleoanthropology session will feature an overiew lecture by Daniel Lieberman and a case study lecture by Dean Falk on “The Role of Prehistoric Mothers in the Evolution of Language”.

The Behavioral session, chaired by Jill Pruetz, consists of an overview lecture by Joan Silk. Dorothy Cheney will discuss “Primate Social Cognition” for the case study lecture.

For the afternoon keynote, Robert Martin will discuss “The Evolution of Mothering”.

Chaired by Brooke Scelza, the Hunter-forager session will have an overview lecture by Kristen Hawkes, and a case study by Rebecca Bliege Bird on the role of women amongst Australia’s Aboriginal peoples.

Each session of this intimate event will end with a question and answer session. Leslie Aiello will conclude the day’s proceedings with a symposium wrap-up.

This event is now sold out! But you can still see the symposium LIVE, online. Sign up for your conference pass today!

Produced in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences, this special symposium is generously sponsored by Jean and Ray Auel, Gordon and Ann Getty, and Wells Fargo Bank.

In December, The Leakey Foundation was proud to host Dr. Robert D. Martin, Curator of Biological Anthropology at The Field Museum and Dr. Ian Tattersall, Curator at The American Museum of Natural History, in a rousting debate over the origins of the mysterious Homo floresiensis. In case you missed it, here is footage of the debate.

The debate, held at California Academy of Sciences, was captured by Fora.tv.

Dr. Richard Wrangham, Professor at Harvard University and co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project

Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man, the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. Renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Dr. Wrangham will show that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution.

When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began.

Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor.

Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors’ diets, Dr. Wrangham sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Dr. Wrangham will fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins or in our modern eating habits.

Dr. Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, the long-term study of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His research culminates in the study of human evolution in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioral ecology of apes. As a graduate student, Dr. Wrangham studied under Robert Hinde and Jane Goodall. He also helped the late Dian Fossey establish her eponymous Gorilla Fund to protect and research the Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 @ 6:30pm

Houston Museum of Natural Science

General Admission: $18

HMNS, Leakey Foundation & Harvard Club Members: $12

Please call the Museum Box Office at (713) 639-4629 or reserve your ticket online.

There will be a book signing immediately after the lecture. Reserve your copy of Catching Fire by Dr. Richard Wrangham now.

If you are on Facebook, let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page for this lecture.

Generous support provided by Wells Fargo Bank.

• Funded $762,000 in grants to scientists; an increase of $26,000 over last year’s amount
• Funded six scholars from developing countries through the Baldwin Fellowship Program
• Offered five public lectures across the nation with the Speaker Series on Human Origins
• Provided over 1,000 youth, face-to face learning opportunities in the classroom with leading scientists through the Leakey Learning Expeditions Program
• Received an 80% Efficiency Rating for our 2010 audit, meaning 80% of our annual budget is granted to researchers and used for educational outreach
• Provided emergency funding to a Grantee who was at risk of discontinuing a decades worth of research in Indonesia, due to lack of other institutional funding
• Reached over 113,000 followers on Twitter, and we are #10 on Twitter’s list of top 20 science accounts to follow (above the journal Scientific American (#19)

We were able to accomplish this during a challenging economic climate, because of the ongoing support of our donors. Funding for human origins research is becoming all too scarce, and biological evolution is discounted by 61% of the American population. The Leakey Foundation seeks to preserve grant-funding levels, while continuing educational outreach for adults and youth. Our work has never been more important.

There is no easier way to support science while garnering a tax-deductible donation. With your 2011 end of year contribution, a generous donor has pledged to give one dollar for every two dollars that you give, thus making sure your contribution will go further!

Please click here to donate to The Leakey Foundation. You may give a one-time holiday gift, or give on a monthly basis with an ‘automatic payment’ donation.

Thank you for your generous support!

In November, Board President Don Dana, along with Leakey Grantees Nick Toth and Kathy Schick ventured into the dense jungle of the Amazon Rainforest in search of the Huaorani tribe. Their quest… to learn about the Huaorani’s method of hunting with blowguns and poison darts, dipped in curare. Though The Leakey Foundation did not have a hand in funding this amazing trip, we thought you’d enjoy reading Don’s dispatches from deep in the Amazon. Read them here:

November 10: Departure from Quito

Drove south from Quito through Avenida de Los Volcanos. Many of the volcanos continue to be very active. Crossed the Andes at Banos, the Gateway to the Amazon, heading for Shiripuno River. The last two legs of our travel were by small planes and dugout canoes.

November 11: Contact with Huaorani

Made contact with the Huaorani. Homes are thatched huts with earthen floors used my multiple families. The Huaorani were discovered in the mid 1950s by discovering the bodies of the first five missionaries who tried to make contact with them. Contrary to popular misinformation, the Huaorani are not cannibals, nor to they shrink heads. The head shrinking is done by the Shwar, the tribe immediately south of here.

The woman in the photo is Dawa, one of the first Huaorani to meet, but not subsequently kill missionaries. She is the only family member to have survived first contact. The rest died from polio and other diseases caught from the missionaries.

November 13: Hunting Methods

The Huaorani hunt with spears and blowguns, but are best known for their blowguns, which shoot darts tipped with curare poison. The hunters can easily hit small birds and monkeys from 30 yards or more. The black colored poison on the tip of the darts paralyzes the muscles of the hunted animal.

The Huaorani eat all that they kill, and everyone in the village shares the meat. Although women and men do different work, women have equal status with men. One of the main jobs of women is to make chicha for the men when they return from the hunt. The drink is made by women thoroughly chewing the yucca plant, spitting out the mixture, then letting the liquid ferment.

We’re approaching the end of the year and the conclusion of our Fall 2011 Granting Session. Our Scientific Executive Committee (SEC) and outside peers have reviewed all applications, and have make their recommendations for funding distribution. This fall, we received 74 applications for grants in Behavioral and Paleoanthropology categories, of which the reviewers have recommended 20 grants for funding, totaling $254,287. The chart above shows the breakdown of recommended funding by subcategory of all the applications. Here are some quick facts about this fall’s session:

• There were 35 applications in Paleoanthropology, and 39 in Behavioral
• 8 applications were recommended in Behavioral for a total of $125,553.00
• 12 applications were recommended in Paleoanthropology for a total of $128,734.00
• 3 additional applications were funded by trustees of the Foundation for a total of $32,000.