Field Schools

Embracing Our Ancestry

The students have arrived at Turkwel for their final adventure of The Origins Field School, the Archaeology module.  For this, we are joined by Dr. Elisabeth Hildebrand from Stonybrook University who studies the beginnings of agriculture and herding in Africa. She has also done research in East Africa area for over 10 years! Dr. [...]

2017-04-10T07:00:41+03:00April 10th, 2017|Spring 2017|Comments Off on Embracing Our Ancestry

Our Murky Origins

As curious beings, we often question where we came from and how we came to be.  We used to think of our evolutionary tree as a straight branch, with an animal that looked like a chimp furthest back, a half chimp half man transitional species, and then us.  However, as the field of paleoanthropology progresses, [...]

2017-03-30T20:54:46+03:00March 30th, 2017|Field Schools, Spring 2017|Comments Off on Our Murky Origins

Visiting hominin ancestors

It is now the second week of the human evolution module of the Origins Field School and our dedicated students are ready for a new set of adventures! In the classroom, we have been learning about how different evolutionary theories have been developed around a rather limited hominin fossil record. With all the gaps in [...]

2017-03-27T12:34:23+03:00March 27th, 2017|Field Schools, Spring 2017|Comments Off on Visiting hominin ancestors

A family tree of Caminalcules

Families are considered functional units of a typical human society. Depending on the geographic and cultural origin, families can come in different shapes and sizes. The most straightforward way to relate all the members of an extended family is to draw a family tree. Most people know their immediate relatives such as a parent or [...]

2017-03-26T12:44:25+03:00March 22nd, 2017|Field Schools, Spring 2017|Comments Off on A family tree of Caminalcules

The Beginning of Our Origins

The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived, the human evolution module.  For the module, Dr. Matthew Borths from the University of Ohio joins us to tell the story of our own evolutionary origins.  Dr. Borths studies changes in African ecosystems, particularly as they relate to ape evolution, throughout the Miocene.  He was [...]

2017-03-22T12:47:53+03:00March 21st, 2017|Field Schools, Spring 2017|Comments Off on The Beginning of Our Origins

The Power of Paleontology

As paleontology neared the end, students were able to demonstrate what they learned throughout the course by designing research experiments. These projects focused on a wide array of paleontological methods and topics including excavation, tooth wear, and how an animal's chewing rate correlates with its body size. The students worked quite hard on these projects [...]

2017-03-15T09:35:41+03:00March 15th, 2017|General, Spring 2017|Comments Off on The Power of Paleontology

Nom nom nom…

Origins Field School students don’t have to worry about what's for dinner, as we are provided with healthy and delicious food every day. But what is on the menu for other animals? How can we use them to infer the diet of their fossil relatives?

2017-03-13T14:03:24+03:00March 12th, 2017|Spring 2017|Comments Off on Nom nom nom…

Earth’s history unrolled

Where does the world come from is one of the most fascinating questions people have asked for thousands of years. Needless to say, the Earth came a long way before it took the shape that we can recognize today. How do we know about major Earth history events such as splitting up of continents, appearance [...]

2017-03-08T08:21:37+03:00March 8th, 2017|Spring 2017|Comments Off on Earth’s history unrolled
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