BU Dialogues in Biological Anthropology: The Mysterious Origins of the Genus Homo - Part 2

New fossils have sparked new, revolutionary ideas about the origins of the genus Homo. Did the first truly human primates evolve in East Africa, as the textbooks would have it? Or was the human homeland in Asia or South Africa? On April 7th, 2011, the third BU Dialogues in Biological Anthropology confronted these questions, along with the long-simmering debate over who owns the fossils and who gets to see them.

In this panel discussion, Dr. Lee R. Berger (Reader in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science, Institute for Human Evolution, School of GeoSciences, University of the Witwatersrand), Dr. Adam van Arsdale (Department of Anthropology, Wellesley College), and Matt Cartmill and Jeremy DeSilva from Boston University debate and discuss these issues with each other and with members of the BU audience.