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Research Projects:
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My general interests in physical anthropology focus on two areas: human evolution during the Pleistocene and human variation. I am particularly interested in the geographical patterning of variation across regions of the Old World, and what that can tell us about population relatedness and dispersal/migration patterns in both extant and extinct groups. I have applied models from population genetics and evolutionary biology to the fossil record to formulate predictions and to gain a better understanding of the processes that have shaped the variation we observe. I also approach these questions with a view to refining the quantitative and analytical methods we use so that the answers are as secure as they can be.
My research also stems from a parallel interest in the history of science, and of physical anthropology in particular. I am interested not only in what we can learn about our evolutionary history, but how the social context in which we pursue human evolution studies shapes the questions we ask as well as our interpretations of our results.
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Lower Narmada Valley Research Project-Gujarat, India
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The Narmada Alluvial Plain in Gujarat, Western India has been extensively studied by the geologists at the M.S. University of Baroda over the past 25 years, providing a solid geological and paleoenvironmental framework for identifying hominin localities. With colleagues from the M.S. University of Baroda, we are conducting surveys of this region, focusing on Late Pleistocene deposits. The research is funded in part by the National Geographic Society Expeditions Council, the National Science Foundation, and Texas A&M University
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Central Narmada Valley Research Project-Madhya Pradesh, India
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The Central Narmada River Valley has yielded the only Middle Pleistocene hominin fossil cranium from the Indian subcontinent, the Narmada fossil found in 1982. Colleagues from the Stone Age Research Institute at the University of Indiana and the Department of Geology at Chandigarh University in Panjab, India have set up a multi-disciplinary fieldwork project along the Narmada Valley in Central India searching for hominin localities from the Middle and Late Pleistocene.
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Geographic Variation in Frontal Bone Morphology of Middle Pleistocene Homo
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For my dissertation, I studied the patterning of variation in the frontal bone morphology of a sample of Middle Pleistocene fossils from various regions of the Old World seeking evidence of population structure during this time period. Using an instrument I designed, and manufactured by Paleo-Tech concepts, I collected sagittal and parasagittal outlines of the frontal bone of over 40 Pleistocene fossils. I used Fourier analysis to quantify the variation and concluded that the frontal bone morphology in Middle Pleistocene Homo does not show an isolation-by-distance pattern of variation. It remains to be seen what evolutionary forces have shaped that variation, and whether they are significant at the species level.
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Temporal Variation in Pleistocene hominin frontal bone morphology
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Using the same data, I am also evaluating the discriminatory power of various aspects of frontal bone morphology to see which are particularly characteristic or diagnostic of various fossil groups. Using this, it will also be possible to determine which aspects of the frontal bone are significantly different between specific pairs of fossil groups.
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The Narmada Fossil and Homo heidelbergensis
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The Narmada hominin from Central India has been described as H. erectus and "archaic" H. sapiens because it possesses a mix of archaic and modern features. With the resurrection of the taxon H. heidelbergensis to define many other Middle Pleistocene specimens, it was appropriate to revisit question of whether Narmada fits the morphological profile of H. heidelbergensis.
A study using multinomial logistic regression and discriminant function analysis indicates that Narmada is morphologically intermediate between the African and Asian Middle Pleistocene specimens. This makes sense given its geographical location, and suggests that India was a crossroads between these two regions during the Pleistocene.
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The Middle Paleolithic Teshik-Tash Child from Uzbekistan
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A translation of the original monograph of the Teshik-Tash specimen from Uzbekistan, conventionally believed to be the "easternmost" Neandertal, reveals that some of the morphology used to designate it as a Neandertal is actually heavily reconstructed. A study focusing on the original unreconstructed morphology of the Teshik-Tash child suggests that this specimen cannot be definitively considered a Neandertal; in fact, its strongest morphological affinities are with other Upper Paleolithic juveniles.
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Early Modern Humans from the Pestera cu Oase, Romania
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