Anthropogeny: The Perspective from Africa
Berhane Asfaw, National Museum of Ethiopia
Lyn Wadley, University of the Witwatersrand
Summary:
Darwin and Huxley first predicted that we humans shared a common ancestor with the African great apes and it is now abundantly clear that Africa was the “cradle of humanity,” with multiple waves of hominins arising on that continent and spreading across the old world, eventually being effectively displaced by our own species, which also arose in Africa. As Svante Paabo put it, “we are all Africans, either living in Africa or in recent exile from Africa." Given these facts, it is not surprising that the strong emphasis of anthropogeny is on the continent of Africa with studies ranging from genetic to paleontological to archeological to primatological to climatological to sociocultural. This CARTA symposium focuses on the contributions of scientists and scholars of anthropogeny who live and work in Africa.
UCSD-TV Broadcast Note: The videos of the talks delivered at this symposium will be broadcast on UCSD-TV in July 2019. After these presentations are aired, they will be archived on this webpage, as well as at the UCSD-TV, iTunes, and YouTube websites. If you would like to be notified of the TV broadcast dates and online availability, be sure to set up a User Account on the CARTA website here. We will send an email announcement to all CARTA Users shortly before the air dates in July.
Event Sessions
Talk summaries written by graduate students enrolled in the Anthropogeny Specialization Track can be viewed by clicking on the image in the "Student Summary" column, or by clicking on the individual talk titles below.
| Date | Session Title | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Fri 5/31 | Australopithecus in East and South Africa | Job Kibii, National Museums of Kenya |
| Fri 5/31 | The Chad Basin | Likius Andossa , University of N’Djamena |
| Fri 5/31 | The Archaeology of Konso-Gardula | Yonas Beyene, Association for Research and Conservation of Culture; French Center for Ethiopian Studies |
| Fri 5/31 | The Origin and Development of Fire Technology in Africa | Lyn Wadley, University of the Witwatersrand |
| Fri 5/31 | So, Where Do We Come From? | Himla Soodyall, National Health Laboratory Service (Johannesburg); University of the Witwatersrand |
| Fri 5/31 | Assessing Claims for the “Earliest” Homo sapiens | Berhane Asfaw, National Museum of Ethiopia |
| Fri 5/31 | Klasies River as a 120,000-Year-Old Archive of Human Behavior in South Africa | Sarah Wurz, University of the Witwatersrand |
| Fri 5/31 | The View from West Africa | Abdoulaye Camara, Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire (IFAN), Université de Dakar (Sénégal) |
| Fri 5/31 | Behavior and Settlement Patterns in Coastal Stone Age Communities – Evidence from Stable Isotopes | Judith Sealy, University of Cape Town |
Event Glossary
A glossary for this event is available as a Searchable List and a 
PDF.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Program_CARTA_Spring2019.pdf | 476.54 KB |
| Speaker_Bios_CARTA_Spring2019s.pdf | 109.07 KB |
| CARTA_Spring2019_Parking directions and map.pdf | 333.2 KB |
| CARTA_Spring2019_drop_off_directions and map.pdf | 216.65 KB |
| Abstracts_CARTA_Spring2019.pdf | 579.06 KB |
| CARTA_Africa_Perspectives_Glossary.pdf | 828.73 KB |
