Dissertation HEB MSc

The dissertation is based on independent research and thought. This may be achieved at an empirical level (by presenting source or case materials) or at a theoretical level (by exploring and synthesising previously published sources), or in a mixed manner. A good dissertation demonstrates awareness of similar research, situates itself critically in relation to what has come before, and will also point to other areas of research. Students should choose their dissertation supervisor on the basis of topic and/or theoretical expertise, and is typically an instructor of a compulsory or optional module on the programme. Other academics outside of UCL may additionally supervise you during field or lab work phases, if you collect dissertation data in research groups located outside UCL.

• Length: Maximum of 15,000 words (for main text; excluding bibliography, tables, appendices)
• The dissertation should aim to be suitable for publication in an appropriate scholarly journal (notwithstanding that it would have to be shortened and edited before it could be submitted)

Example of dissertation topics from previous years

Evolutionary Theory

• An evaluation of the use of phenetic and cladistic methods for analysing different data types
• An evolutionary analysis of tool using behaviour: a computer simulation of the behaviours of complex life
• An investigation into factors influencing acceptance of the relevance of evolutionary theory applied to human behaviour
• Calculating species numbers in extinct Hominoidea
• Phylogenetic analysis of hominoid behavioural evolution
• The evolution of the mammalian sex chromosome heteromorphism
• The expensive tissue hypothesis: the relationship between basal metabolic rate and organ mass
• A new method for exploring past migratory activity using biological or cultural variation data dispersed in space and time

Primatology

• A comparison of non-human primate vocal repertoires
• A quantitative analysis of gibbon behavioural ecology
• Activity and association pattern of wild olive baboons at Gashaka, Nigeria: spatial-temporal variation in relation to resource availability
• Activity budgets of wild troops of white-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica: the influence of age and sex, ecology and human presence
• Are there sex differences in the use of landmarks and spatial gradients by non-human primates to locate food?
• Bioacoustical analysis of free-ranging slender loris whistles: function and factors influencing their production
• Counting the cost: investigating the relationship between expensive infant care and complex mating systems in neotropical primates
• Duetting in gibbons: territorial defence or female advertising?
• Growing pains: an investigation into the development of olive baboon infants
• Handpicked for performance: hand preference in wild olive baboons
• Heritability of life history and morphological traits in mandrills
• Infanticide by males in non-human primates: maternal and infant counterstrategies
• Phylogeny and biogeography of south east Asian primates
• Playing safe: agonistic interactions and risk-management tactics of oestrous female rhesus macaques
• Post-conflict behaviour of wild Hanuman langurs
• Primate lifespan, mortality risk and the disposable soma theory of senescence
• Primates and the bush meat crisis: does exploitation necessarily mean extinction?
• Seasonal variation in availability and consumption of army ants by Nigerian chimpanzees
• Social dynamics of bi-male mountain gorilla groups
• The development of species-typical communicative behaviours in chimpanzees
• Food begging and transfer in wild bonobos (Pan paniscus): assessing relationship quality?
• Sleeping site selection of olive baboons in Gashaka Gumti National Park, Nigeria
• The effect of reproductive state on the sociality of female olive baboons: evidence from a field study in Nigeria
• How gregarious are female chimpanzees? Camera-trap aided measurements across four subspecies.
• Female foraging strategies in Bornean orangutans

Comparative Functional Anatomy

• A geometric morphometric study into the ontogeny of the subadult gorilla and chimpanzee scapula with relation to locomotion
• Intra-inter specific variation and sexual dimorphism in the occipital bone and palate of great apes and humans: a geometric morphometric approach
• Timing of crown formation in molar teeth
• An analysis of variation in the tibia of great apes and humans: implications for STW 514a and STW 514b
• Bipedal wading
• Climate-related variation of the human nasal cavity
• Comparative positional behaviour in three captive callitrichid species: Leontopithecus chrysomelas, Saguinus imperator and Cebuella pygmaea
• Encephalisation and the origins of human food processing: food for thought
• Hominid body mass estimation: a comparison of predictors and methods
• Human, ape and fossil hominid growth and development
• Patterns of cranial dimorphism and extended growth in extant hominoid primates: implications for social and reproductive behaviour
• Sexual dimorphism in the primate innominate bone
• Taxonomic utility of the fossil hominid basicranium and palate: a comparative 3d morphometric analysis
• The effect of diet and mandibular gape upon the functional morphology of the Catarrhini temporomandibular joint: an approach using geometric morphometrics
• The significance of dental roots
• The significance of eye orbits in human evolution
• Tools, hands and interpretations: Analysing the hand grips of chimpanzees
• Does internal bone structure of the humerus reflect locomotor behaviour in extant apes and fossil hominins?
• Effects of infant carry and play positions on achievement of developmental milestones
• Getting a grip on the past: trabecular structure in the fifth metacarpal head of extant and fossil hominoids
• Hand proportions and body mass in primates
• Inter-specific scaling of articular surface areas in the primate calcaneus
• One of these sides is not like the other: dental fluctuating asymmetry in four genera of apes
• Scaling of navicular articular facet size and shape with body mass and intermembral index (IMI) in 51 primate species
• The functional morphology of the forelimb of Perodicticus potto and Lagothrix lagotricha
• The root of the matter: dental development in South African hominins, revisited

Palaeoanthropology and Human Evolution

• Evolutionary rates in hominin posterior teeth
• Heritability of chimpanzee and human subcortical anatomy
• A craniometric study of fossil calvaria from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca
• A morphometric assessment of the Olduvai hominid 48 clavicle
• Hominid palaeodemography: the Neanderthals
• The deciduous dentition of Griphopithecus: morphometric analysis of a middle Miocene hominoid
• A comparative analysis of the proximal pedal phalanges of Homo antecessor
• A reassessment of the odontometric variation of the Krapina dental assemblage using a cervical margin odontometric method of measurement: an evaluation of the method and statistics employed
• An analysis of enamel hypoplasias and other dental conditions in an early bronze age 1a population from Bab Edh-dhra, southern Jordan
• Ecomorphological analysis of extant bovid forelimbs and its applications to fossil bovids from 3 ma Makapansgat, South Africa
• Hominoid phylogeny: a test using geometric morphometrics
• Homo ergaster: female philopatry or dispersal?
• How adoption of a more meat-based diet facilitated and accelerated hominid ranging out of Africa
• How many species at Pasalar? A study in molar morphology
• Measuring variation in pattern and degree of craniofacial sexual dimorphism between different modern human populations
• One foot in the past: the degree of halux abduction of the OH 8 foot
• Reconstructing the past: an ecological diversity analysis of Olduvai bed II above and below the Lemuta Member
• The effects of East African lake periods and the broader environmental context on human evolution
• The muddle in the middle Pleistocene: can the development of the maxilla and canine fossa from birth to adulthood shed new light on the classification of juvenile Atapuerca specimen ATD6-69 as the new species Homo antecessor?
• The Neanderthal and Homo erectus pelvis in human evolution
• The Neanderthal mandibular configuration as a diagnostic taxonomic characteristic
• Was the Levant a refuge for Neanderthals during climatic extremes in Europe?
• Hominin evolution in phylogenetic context
• The morphology of the enamel-dentine junction in Neanderthal molars
• The phylogenetic and functional significance of Orrorin tugenensis, assessed through quantitative analyses of hominoid femoral morphology

Mate Choice, Sex and Reproduction

• An evolutionary perspective on tactics and preferences in human mate selection: evidence from lonely hearts advertisements
• Are both food aversions and an increased level of ethnocentrism in the first trimester of pregnancy evolutionary adaptations to protect the developing foetus and its mother?
• Difference and effects of migration on mate height preference using Japanese and white Caucasian populations
• Ethnocentricity in pregnancy
• Facedate: an investigation into the mate choices made on a collection of facial photographs
• Human mating strategies and their relationship with sexually determined personality traits
• Investigating patterns of female ovarian cyclicity in semifree-ranging mandrills
• Male choice: potential male preferences for female external genital morphology
• Male parental investment and pair bond stability: an empirical test of marriage as a reproductive contract
• Masturbation in female primates: taxonomic distribution, proximate causes and potential evolutionary functions
• Masturbation in male primates: taxonomic distribution, proximate causes and potential evolutionary functions
• Mechanisms and functions of homosexual behaviour: a case study of wild Hanuman langur monkeys
• Mechanisms and functions of ovulatory desynchronisation in Hanuman langur monkeys
• Reproductive endocrinology in males in relation to Bangladeshi migration
• Sexual swelling colour change: the evolution of full colour vision in primates and the accurate analysis of colour
• Sex, somatype and socioecology: the impact of westernization on body-shape preferences
• Socio-economic status and testosterone: the trade-off between current and future reproduction in British male
• The measurement of urinary LH levels using LH detection kits and radioimmunoassays
• Evolutionary roots of gender differences in risk-seeking behaviour
• Inferring ancestral marriage and mating strategies in Indo-European societies
• The evolution of human mate choice: shifting gender ideologies and the impact of the demographic transition on mate choice preferences
• Tracing the evolution of human homosexuality: evidence for the kin selection hypothesis

Human Behavioural Ecology

• An evolution of altruistic punishment: do altruistic punishers receive a good reputation, and is this individually beneficial?
• An evolutionary perspective on intelligence, fertility and unplanned childbirths: a test of predictions in a British cohort
• Costly signalling in religious groups: the American congregational giving study
• Differential grandparental investment based on two nationalities (British and Bulgarian), gender and birth order
• Game-theoretic modelling of paternity certainty and male provisioning strategies: a theoretical model and its application to hominid reproductive energetics
• Grandmothering in evolutionary perspective: a dynamic model of population growth
• Testing the grandmothering hypothesis: the provisioning of Homo erectus infants and juveniles.
• The roles of phylogenesis and ethnogenesis in the development of Turkmen woven assemblages: a case study in the evolution of cultural diversification
• Cooperation under conflict: an example involving neighbourhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland
• Gift-giving in Mbendjele hunter-gatherers: an investigation into the adaptive origins of cooperation
• Gossip games: The co-evolution of cooperation and communication
• Kinship in Sino-Tibetan language family: a comparative phylogenetic approach
• Sharing is not caring: an agent-based model of selfish food distribution and consumption patterns
• Warfare in human evolution: an ethnographic approach

Applied Evolutionary Anthropology

• Social desirability bias: The effect of interface design on the discourse of health-related information
• The evolutionary salesman: submissive behaviour enhances compliance in persuasive communication
• Kin residency, sexual conflict and lateral pressures on fertility desires, behaviours and outcomes in Tanzania
• Altruism in London: deprivation as an indicator

Evolutionary Medicine

• The evolution of short stature and life history in the extinct Barrinean pygmies
• Maternal nutrition and sex ratio biases in Ethiopia
• Fear for your life: an empirical study of evolutionary hypotheses of OCD and anxiety in relation to risk-avoidance and accident proneness
• An investigation into evolutionary explanations of the type ii diabetes epidemic: the role of physical activity levels

Genetics

• Human genetic adaptation to high elevation-the potential role of genetic polymorphisms in Ethiopian populations
• The genealogical relationship of y-chromosomes in the Sakya of Bangladesh, Nepal and northeast India
• The history of tuberculosis in human populations: inferences from the Nrampi gene
• Y chromosome genetic history of eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasian populations; implications for the Neolithic population growth and the genetic affinities of Cypriot populations