#507 Jessica Thompson: Human Evolution, and Our Impact on the Environment
RECORDED ON APRIL 6th 2021.
Dr. Jessica Thompson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. Dr. Thompson specializes in human evolution, and especially those aspects that can be revealed through the analysis of ancient animal bones found at archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). She leads the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project in Malawi, central Africa, where she has maintained a field site since 2009. This multidisciplinary work combines archaeological science, evolutionary theory, and hunter-gatherer ethnography to develop and interpret the first cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies in the region that span the transition from the last Ice Age. Her other research, based on collaborative work in Ethiopia, targets the opposite end of the archaeological record, at its origin in the Pliocene. Dr. Thompson is PI of the Osteoarchaeology Laboratory at Yale University.
In this episode, we talk about human evolution and hunter-gatherer societies. We first talk about the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project. We then discuss several aspects of our evolution, including: our origins; what a modern human is; the so-called “cognitive revolution”; how the last Ice Age impacted our evolution; “race”, and its implications for medicine; and if modern hunter-gatherers are good models of the societies we evolved in. Finally, we discuss a recent paper on the environmental impact of anthropogenic fires, and how humans impacted their environments during our evolutionary history more generally, including the extinction of megafauna.
Time Links:
Intro
The Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project
Our origins
Modern humans
The “cognitive revolution”
The impact of the last Ice Age on our evolution
“Race”, and medicine
Modern hunter-gatherers as models of ancient ones
The impact of humans on their environments
Follow Dr. Thompson’s work!
Follow Dr. Thompson’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/39tmCE9
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3cV6L2Z
Ancient Bones and the Origin of the Human Diet (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLWiH7MGz3U