UCL Biological Anthropology Seminar: Homo naledi: The evidence in hand

The 7th biological anthropology seminar of Spring 2016 will be given by palaeoanthropologist, Tracy Kivell of the University of Kent. Tracy will discuss the evidence thus far extracted from the hand morphology of the famed Homo naledi hominin remains, found in November 2013, at the Rising Star Cave System, not far from Johannesburg, South Africa. She studies the functional morphology of the wrist and hand in extant and fossil primates to further our understanding of the origin of human bipedalism and hand use throughout our evolutionary history. This work will help us understand the relationship between bone shape and function of the hand through analyses of ontogeny, internal (trabecular and cortical) bone structure, and the biomechanics of primate locomotion.