Date: 2007.02.23 (Fri) 15:00-16:15
Place: Kashiwa Campus, General Research Building, Room 630.
Speaker: Minoru Yoneda
Title: The significance of modern human behavior: a perspective from human evolution
Keywords: human evolution, modern human behavior, Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, “Late Paleolithic Revolution”

Affiliation: Department of Integrated Biosciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo
Position: Associate Professor
Disciplines:
Societies and Conferences:

Bibliography: Minoru Yoneda, , No. 22, pp. 1, 2007.

Abstract:
The biological origin of modern human, Homo sapiens, dated back to ca. 200,000 year ago but the genetic backgrounds and morphological characters are investigated by using fossil specimens and DNA diversities among modern human populations. Recently the genetic information on the Neanderthals and early modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons, was extracted from ancient mitochondrial DNA and reveal the long independent history of these two lineages. The results of genomic research on Neanderthals’ nuclear DNA published last year suggested the clear difference from modern human as well. Then, what made the fatal difference between these hominid groups? The origin of “modern human behavior” has become a major topic in the fields of prehistoric anthropology and human evolution researches nowadays. In this talk, I would like to review the recent advances on human evolutionary researches of Neanderthals and early modern humans. Then, the significance of modern human behavior will be discussed in the light of human evolution.

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