Maxwell Ancestors lecture to focus on the early stages of human evolution
February 14, 2024
The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology’s annual Ancestors lecture returns with a talk by The University of New Mexico Associate Professor Sherry Nelson. Nelson will speak about Becoming Human: The Early Stages from Ape to Hominin.
The lecture will be Thursday, Feb. 22 from 6:30 – 8 p.m. at the Hibben Center for Archaeological Research, Room 105, in the Maxwell. The event is free and open to all.
“What happened in human evolution,” Nelson asks. “Our closest relatives today are the apes, who are similar to one another in diets, habitats, development, and body and brain sizes. While apes probably have not changed much over the past 10 million years, the lineage leading to humans underwent extraordinary transitions. We developed even bigger, more energetically expensive brains, bodies, and children, and yet we conquered the world.”
In this talk, using techniques in paleoecology, Nelson will explore the early stages of human evolution to understand how we first moved out of the rainforests, expanded our diets, and potentially began to change our social structure.
Read more in the UNM Newsroom
