Doctoral Dissertation Research: Paleontological and population genetics approaches for reconstructing hominin evolutionary history

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

This doctoral dissertation project reconstructs evolutionary relationships among ancient populations of Homo erectus, a pivotal human ancestor, using dental and skeletal data. The project integrates paleontological and population genetics approaches for reconstructing evolutionary history, thereby advancing knowledge about how hominins, including our species, Homo sapiens, evolved.

The project promotes interdisciplinarity by using approaches typically used in the field of bioarchaeology, increases diversity in the field of paleoanthropology by supporting the scholarship of a female paleoanthropologist, and fosters international research collaborations. The investigator conducts public and K-12 science outreach through a weblog about human evolution and through science activities with middle and high school students.

Homo erectus, represented in the hominin fossil record, is morphologically diverse through both time and space. The current understanding of how populations of H. erectus were related to each other is limited. Bony and dental anatomy provide the primary basis for assessing evolutionary relationships between populations in the fossil record, but the genetic basis of anatomical traits is not always well understood.

This research examines H. erectus temporal and geographic patterns in the relationships among past H. erectus populations using biodistance methods and comparative data. Matrices of dental and neurocranial shape distances will be compared separately using Mantel tests to a matrix describing the temporal, geographic, or genetic distances between populations.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.