Presented By: Department of Anthropology
Biological Anthropology Colloquium: "Was Paranthropus actually absent from the Afar Depression (Ethiopia), or have we just not found it yet?"
Andrew Du, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology and Geography, Colorado State University
PLEASE NOTE: Room change to 411 West Hall
"After decades of fieldwork, the hominin genus Paranthropus is still not observed in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Researchers have proposed various ecological and evolutionary hypotheses explaining this pattern, but such explanations are contingent upon the absence of Paranthropus being a "true" pattern. Observed absence, however, is consistent with two mutually exclusive outcomes: Paranthropus never occupied the Afar, or it did but just has not been found yet. For my talk, I introduce a model that is able to place probabilities on these two outcomes to determine whether observed Paranthropus absence in the Afar reflects true absence."
"After decades of fieldwork, the hominin genus Paranthropus is still not observed in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Researchers have proposed various ecological and evolutionary hypotheses explaining this pattern, but such explanations are contingent upon the absence of Paranthropus being a "true" pattern. Observed absence, however, is consistent with two mutually exclusive outcomes: Paranthropus never occupied the Afar, or it did but just has not been found yet. For my talk, I introduce a model that is able to place probabilities on these two outcomes to determine whether observed Paranthropus absence in the Afar reflects true absence."
Explore Similar Events
-
Loading Similar Events...
