Susana Carvalho and René Bobe Quinteros

 Event 

A new stand on primate adaptations to complex environments and its implications for early human evolution

Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, and it is the home of 225 troops of baboons that are only now being studied. Gorongosa baboons provide a unique window to study three theoretical issues in anthropology (especially primatology and paleoanthropology). In this talk, Susana and René will aim to synthesize data, approaches, and theoretical perspectives from primatology and paleoanthropology to help advance our knowledge of primate adaptations and their implications for our understanding human evolution.

Susana will also discuss her work as the foundation for a new academic sub-discipline: non-human primate archaeology. Her studies revealed for the first time the behavioural patterns and contexts that generate modern chimpanzee tool assemblages that can be compared with those recovered from the past, for apes and humans.

About the speakers 

Susana Carvalho is currently an Associate Professor in the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology and an Associate Director for Palaeoanthropology and Primatology at the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, where she currently coordinates the long-term ‘Paleo-Primate Project’. Susana Carvalho’s currently funded projects include work with the Koobi Fora formation, Kenya and the project ‘Stones on the move: the real life of a chimpanzee tool’, funded by the National Geographic Society. 

René Bobe is a palaeobiologist and biological anthropologist interested in the relationship between climate and evolution, with a focus on the environments and ecology of human origins in Africa. He studies fossil mammals that provide long-term records of ecological and environmental change. Bobe is currently a Research Associate in the School of Anthropology at the University of Oxford.