Evolution
UCTV presents experts exploring the diversity of life on Earth and the evolutionary forces that shape it.
Episodes
April 1, 2024 • 83 mins
Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans, not observed in other mammals. Despite being costly and risky, it is regularly performed. Scientific understanding of this phenomenon is nascent, prompting a symposium aiming to assess current research status and prioritize questions for the next decade. The event brings together academics and industry practitioners, exploring historical and contemporary pr...
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March 22, 2024 • 23 mins
In the literature on lip plates in Southern Ethiopia there has been a strong emphasis on their socio-cultural importance and little information about their biocultural significance. Shauna LaTosky proposes that cultural keystone species theory and cultural keystone place theory could provide a useful frameworks for understanding relationships between the agro-pastoralist Mursi of Southern Ethiopia and the plant species and places t...
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March 15, 2024 • 17 mins
Across continents, material evidence of body piercing jewelry abounds in the archeological record. However, the varying procedures and processes of piercing, healing, and stretching these wounds for adornment remains unfamiliar to most archeologists. This talk discusses the early self-experimentations that led to the development of the Euro-American body piercing industry. From the late 19th throughout the 20th centuries shared per...
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March 8, 2024 • 18 mins
Archaeological research in Mexico and Central America reveals insights into cultural practices, focusing on the history of body modification. Examining long-term patterns helps unravel motivations for adoption, change, and abandonment of these practices. The talk emphasizes how body modification histories in this region illuminate shared identities across linguistic, ethnic, and political boundaries, while also highlighting distinc...
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March 1, 2024 • 18 mins
This talk offers an overview of the many forms of permanent genital modifications embedded in human cultures, where they occur, the reasons why, the archaeological investigations of origins, and future trends. Included are female clitoridectomy, excision, infibulation, and other practices that affect about five percent of females worldwide; and the male practices that affect one-third of males: circumcision, superincision, and subi...
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Bioarchaeological studies of Pleistocene populations, examining practices like tooth ablation, facial piercing, and cranial modification, contribute to our understanding of social identities and population dynamics. Recent analyses of Ohalo II H2 in southwestern Asia and Oldupai Hominid 1 in Tanzania reveal dental evidence of intentional body modifications. Ohalo II H2 likely represents the earliest case of intentional incisor abla...
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February 23, 2024 • 19 mins
Today, permanent body modification (PBM) is very popular. Studies suggest that well over a billion living people have experienced one or more types of PBM. But what is the history of PBM? When did the different types originate? Were they invented recently, or do they have a long history? Did they appear simultaneously or at different times? This presentation examines evidence in non-human animals and extinct hominins, delving into ...
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February 19, 2024 • 15 mins
Our ability to adapt our bodies to culture has ancient origins. We suggest a timeline for how the culturalization of the human body evolved, starting around 500-300 thousand years ago. This timeline highlights key moments at 140 thousand years, 70 thousand years, and 45 thousand years, followed by a faster pace linked to the rise of production economies. The underlying idea is a gradual growth in the complexity of technologies shap...
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February 17, 2024 • 10 mins
Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans, not observed in other mammals. Despite being costly and risky, it is regularly performed. Scientific understanding of this phenomenon is nascent, prompting a symposium aiming to assess current research status and prioritize questions for the next decade. The event brings together academics and industry practitioners, exploring historical and contemporary pr...
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February 17, 2024 • 20 mins
This talk presents a new account of the development of professional tattooing in Britain and America since the late 19th century. Research based exclusively in primary sources reveals that the story of what kickstarted the creation of commercial tattooing, and what sustained it, ultimately becomes intelligible as a small and interconnected network of transnational artists and – crucially – clients. These newly clarified networks pr...
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This talk explores the 1000-year practice of "footbinding" in ethnically Han Chinese families, involving modifying young girls' feet by wrapping the toes under the sole, often resulting in broken toes. Two main hypotheses—Labor Market and Evolutionary Social Sciences—are considered for explaining the origins, maintenance, and cessation of footbinding. This talk presents evidence from autopsy results, medical examinations, anthropol...
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January 10, 2024 • 33 mins
Comparative Anthropogeny (CompAnth) is the study of distinctly human traits and characteristics in the context of comparisons with our closest living relatives, the “great apes.” This symposium, the third of CARTA's CompAnth series, will present a collection of distinctive human traits, ranging from molecular, cellular, and anatomical biology to behavioral, societal, and cultural features. Given the large number of human traits for...
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January 1, 2024 • 11 mins
Comparative Anthropogeny (CompAnth) is the study of distinctly human traits and characteristics in the context of comparisons with our closest living relatives, the “great apes.” This symposium, the third of CARTA's CompAnth series, will present a collection of distinctive human traits, ranging from molecular, cellular, and anatomical biology to behavioral, societal, and cultural features. Given the large number of human traits for...
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January 1, 2024 • 23 mins
Human language is a strong contender for the title of most often named species-specific feature in the literature. But why is that? In this talk, Eva Wittenberg explores what we could mean by "human language", and how different conceptions of language inevitably lead to different answers about whether it is species-specific. While syntax is a central feature, it is only one of several, and the uniqueness of human language is that i...
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December 29, 2023 • 23 mins
Human ovulation lacks visible signs, unlike chimpanzees and bonobos with conspicuous genital swellings during fertility. This led to the concept of "concealed ovulation," seen as a human adaptation. Proposed reasons include encouraging paternal investment, confusing paternity to deter infanticide, enabling secret mating and female choice, and reducing female rivalry. Many non-human primates also have unsignaled ovulation. While sel...
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December 27, 2023 • 19 mins
Life history theory suggests that inter-birth intervals (IBIs) depend on a trade-off between maternal investment in current and future offspring, influenced by the mother's energy and somatic maintenance. Normally, IBI aligns with maternal and infant body size, larger relative infant size leading to slower breeding. In contrast, humans have relatively shorter IBIs due to cooperative breeding, support from the social group. Some oth...
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High-altitude adaptation stands out as one of the most notable examples of evolution within our species. Despite similar challenges of decreased oxygen availability, human groups on different continents have followed unique evolutionary trajectories. I will discuss how genomic, molecular, and physiological discoveries reveal key insights into human-specific evolutionary changes, examine comparative findings and limitations, and con...
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December 16, 2023 • 17 mins
The human genome contains segments of DNA with non-human origins. This introgressed genetic material is remnants of mating events between early modern humans and their archaic contemporaries (e.g., Neanderthals and Denisovans). In this talk, Andrew Schork will review the evidence for such genetic material, its consequences on phenotypic diversity in modern humans, and discuss if this process - archaic introgression - is typical amo...
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The most complex organizations in the living world beside those of humans are the colonies of ants. Mark Moffett will argue that points of comparison between sharply different organisms like ants and humans are exceptionally valuable to science, and indeed that modern humans are in many ways much more like certain ants than we are to our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees. He considers such issues as the role of individuality and g...
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Ethnology, also known as cross-cultural analysis or comparative anthropology, involves comparing features of historically documented human societies. It has historical ties to archaeology, with notable figures like Augustus Pitt Rivers and Lewis Binford being proponents. Despite this, it's not commonly seen as a vital archaeological tool. This talk argues for its importance, citing both theoretical and practical benefits. Including...
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