Human Origins Research

On the Forefront of Human Origins Research

Through research, education, and the sponsorship of scholarly interaction, the Institute of Human Origins (IHO) advances scientific understanding of human evolution and its contemporary relevance.

Today, IHO’s scientists direct major projects pursuing answers to these outstanding questions regarding human origins. Among them are:

• Ongoing IHO field work at Hadar, Ethiopia, addresses the early evolution and ecological variation of Australopithecus (3.0-3.4 myr) and the origin of Homo and stone-tool making (2.3 myr).

           >> IHO Team Leaders: Bill Kimbel, Don Johanson, Kaye Reed, Chris Campisano

• IHO scientists are solving enduring evolutionary puzzles relating to the origin of modern humans with two related projects in southern Africa:
  
  • Mossel Bay Archaeology Project, a long-term field study of the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa shedding light on the early occurrence of modern human behavior, such as symbolic expression, the strategic exploitation of marine food resources, and the early use of fire to improve the quality of stone-tool flaking.
  • Paleoclimatic and Paleoenvironmental Context of the Origins of Modern Humans in South Africa, which, through exploration, excavation, and cutting-edge lab analysis, is developing the first continuous sequence of African environmental change from 400 to 30 kyr ago—a period of profound climatic oscillation and evolutionary innovation in the human lineage.

            >>IHO Team Leader: Curtis Marean, directing an international team

• IHO field research in Africa and Europe focuses on describing and interpreting the ecological characteristics of the ancient fossil mammalian communities of which early hominins were a part.

           >> IHO Team Leader: Kaye Reed

• IHO’s “Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project” collects drill cores from paleolake sediments adjacent to fossil and artifact sites to assemble high-resolution paleoclimatic records between 4 and 1 myr ago, linking records of evolutionary and local-to-global environmental change.

           >>IHO Team Leader: Chris Campisano, collaborating with ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE)
           and University of Arizona 

• IHO addresses the evolutionary basis of the uniquely extended pattern of human growth and development through the timing of dental growth, which is linked to important biological variables such as brain size, gestation length, and longevity. 

           >>IHO Team Leader: Gary Schwartz

• Through ASU’s internally funded transdisciplinary initiative in SHESC, “Late Lessons from Early History,” IHO is pioneering a “cyberinfrastructure” of field data, computer hardware and software, and GIS visualization technology to modernize field-data collection and scientific hypothesis-testing at fossil- and artifact-bearing sites.

           >>IHO Team Leaders: Chris Campisano, Kaye Reed, Bill Kimbel collaborating with ASU’s School of Earth and
           Space Exploration

• Funded by the “Late Lessons from Early History” program, IHO is studying the geographical and ecological origins of modern humans in southern Africa through multidisciplinary field and lab research on the ecology, fossil record, and genetics of the unique fynbos Cape floral kingdom.

           >>IHO Team Leaders: Kaye Reed, Curtis Marean, collaborating with ASU’s School of Life Sciences

• IHO research examines the relationship of anatomy of fossil bones and teeth to the life-ways of early hominins through a multi-institution collaborative project bridging paleontological, experimental, and biomechanical-modeling approaches to the evolution of hominin dietary adaptations.

           >> IHO Team Leader: Mark Spencer