The Evolution of Human Physical Activity
Tatum Simonson, UC San Diego School of Medicine
Daniel Lieberman, Harvard University
Access to the live webcast for this symposium will be provided here on Saturday, May 15 starting at 12:00 PM (Pacific Time).
This is an online-only event. Talks will be recorded and posted on this page. Please check this event page, as well as CARTA’s Facebook (@ucsdcarta) and Twitter (@CARTAUCSD) accounts for updates.
Summary:
Exercise is well known to provide many health benefits, and human physical activities differ significantly from other species. Although hunter-gatherers sometimes climb and fight, they also walk long distances bipedally (the topic of a previous CARTA symposium) as well as run, dig, throw, carry and more. How, when and why did these capabilities evolve? What genetic, physiological and anatomical adaptations underlie them? And how did the evolution of human physical activity affect other key human characteristics such as enlarged brains, high-quality diets, extended life-history strategies, gene-culture co-evolution and high levels of cooperation? To address these and other related questions, this symposium will integrate research on genetics, biomechanics, physiology, neurobiology and behavior. Because more and more humans today are primarily sedentary, we will also explore implications of the evolution of human physical activity for contemporary health and disease.
Event Sessions
| Session | Speakers |
|---|---|
| Evolutionary Genetics of the Human Athletic Phenotype | Ellen Breen, UC San Diego |
| The Anatomical Basis of Aggression in Hominins | David Carrier, University of Utah |
| Physical Activity and Women's Reproductive Health | Grazyna Jasienska, Jagiellonian University |
| Genetic Drivers of Human Thermoregulatory Skin Traits | Yana Kamberov, University of Pennsylvania |
| The Rise and Fall of Climbing in Human Evolution | Jandy Hanna, West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine |
| The Evolution of Walking and Running | Daniel Lieberman, Harvard University |
| The Evolution of Human Metabolism | Herman Pontzer, Duke University |
| Evolutionary links between physical activity and the brain | David Raichlen, University of Southern California |
| Human Adaptation to High Altitudes and Aquatic Environments | Tatum Simonson, UC San Diego School of Medicine |
