CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (Audio)

Indo-European languages are native to populations from Ireland to Afghanistan and India and, in historical times, to the Tarim Basin in China. This spread occurred within a few thousand years carried by people who were mostly horse pastoralists and who carried a mutant regulator of the lactase gene so that they could as adults digest milk sugar. Henry Harpending, University of Utah, discusses how individuals with such lactase persistence are able to extract 40% more calories from milk, while others usually ferment away the milk sugar lactose by making cheese or yogurt. While superior technology of invaders can be adapted by indigenous people, such a biological advantage cannot be copied. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24112]

As our australopithecine ancestors moved out of receding rain forests and into drier habitats, they abandoned a primarily fruit-based diet and began consuming more meat and tubers. This increase in consumption of protein, fat, and starch coincided in time with important evolutionary changes in cognition and brain size. Gregory Wray, Duke University, discusses how genetic and genomic methods are providing insights into the relationship between these two parallel sets of adaptations. Several genes have now been identified that may have mediated a link between changes in diet and changes in behavior during human origins. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 24110]

Efforts to reconstruct gait and other aspects of behavior in extinct hominins continue to be hampered by disagreements over how to interpret anatomical evidence from the fossil record. Brian Richmond (George Washington University) offers unique evidence about early Pleistocene hominin gait and foot shape based on his recent discovery of hominin footprints in the Koobi Fora Formation, Kenya (1.52 Ma). Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 23666]

Tracing the evolution of the human diet from our earliest ancestors can lead to a better understanding of human adaptation in the past. It may also offer clues to the origin of many health problems we currently face, such as obesity and chronic disease. This fascinating series of talks focuses on the changing diets of our ancestors and what role these dietary transitions played in the evolution of humans. Here Mary C. Stiner (Univ of Arizona) discusses Archaic Human Diets followed by Alyssa Crittenden (Univ of Nevada, Las Vegas) on Current Hunter-Gatherer Diets and Steven Leigh (Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on Diets and Microbes in Primates. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 24806]