Distinguished Lecture by Dr. María Martinón-Torres - "The Evolution of Homo sapiens: Asian Perspectives"

Recent discoveries have prompted the necessity to reconsider the weight that Asia may have played in the evolution of modern humans. Simple and linear models to explain the origin and dispersals of H. sapiens seem to be progressively outdated by the new paleoanthropological and archaeological sites. Here I present a general overview of some key fossil samples that place modern humans outside Africa close to 100,000 years ago, increasing the time of overlap with other archaic hominins and posing new questions about the time and pattern of H. sapiens expansion into Asia. Hosts: Michael Petraglia and Nicole Boivin, Department of Archaeology