Planned for 2020/21, this 3-week online course will offer an in-depth look at diet and human evolution. Diet is perhaps the most important factor affecting the behavior and ecology of most animals. Obtaining and consuming food would have been the main goal for most of daily activities for our extinct hominin ancestors. A species diet contrains its body size, locomotion, life history, geographic range, habitat choice, and social behaviour. Therefore, an understanding of diet is crucial to early hominins. 

Course outline:

• Basic primate adaptations to diet
• Fallback foods
• Dietary studies of hominins: Tooth morphology / Biomechanics of mastication
• Dietary studies of hominins: Dental microwear
• Dietary studies of hominins: Biochemical analyses
• Reconstructing early hominin diets

You can also take part in discussions with other participants and I will be available to answer your questions. Each course unit has reading material with a test at the end. The reading material can also be downloaded and read offline.

Prerequisites: recommended that you have done one of the human evolution courses

Availability: 2020/21

Price: TBA

Please get in touch if you are interested in taking part in any of the courses or would like further details. 

Images sources:  Left: Durova, CC BY-SA 3.0; right: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 3.0.