Upcoming Symposia

Join us at an upcoming CARTA symposia as we continue to explore the origin of humans and the implications for the past, present and future of our species. Detailed event and registration information is provided on each symposium page. All event times are Pacific.

Date	Title
Oct 11, 2019 - 1:00pm	Impact of Early Life Deprivation on Cognition: Implications for the Evolutionary Origins of the Human Mind
Feb 21, 2020 - 1:00pm	Exploring the Origins of Today's Humans

May 15, 2020 - 1:00pm The Evolution of Human Physical Activity
Co-Chairs: Tatum Simonson (UC Diego) & Daniel Lieberman (Harvard University)
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.