Human Origins: Eval Turkana Basin’s Fossil Record

Catalog description

This course is part of the Turkana Basin Institute’s Summer Origins Field School. Students experience the field-based elements of human origins research to understand the contributions of geology, vertebrate paleontology, taphonomy, and zooarchaeology to integrated knowledge of the human past. Students learn the fundamentals of field reconnaissance; survey, plotting, preservation, collection, and curation of fossil remains; and analysis and interpretation of contexts and finds. These hands-on field and lab activities are situated in the larger framework of testing hypotheses about major questions in human origins. Students visit major paleontological sites and undertake field activities under the supervision of senior specialists and leaders of ongoing field projects.