Sunday Adult Forum -- The Origins of Us

Please join us on the first three Sundays in December for a review of how humans have evolved in the last 20 million years. The discussions will be very high level, and yet, specific details will be reviewed of the past one million years and the general progress of the field of paleoanthropology.

Paleoanthropology is the study of human evolution through fossil and archaeological records. It is an interdisciplinary field whose practitioners include biological anthropologists, Paleolithic archaeologists, earth scientists, and geneticists.  ©New World Encyclopedia

“The field of paleoanthropology, the study of the origins and evolution of humans, was considered for decades as one of the slowest and restrictive fields in science. Major discoveries were sometimes decades apart, and publishing new findings could take years. As late as the 1990s, there were more paleoanthropologists than fossils. Everything has changed in the past 20 years as modern technology has transformed the field. Satellite technology, DNA analysis, modern radioactive isotope dating, and the internet have made the field exciting again. The understanding of our ancestors is being re-written almost annually. Join us as we discuss this field at a high level, and then, dive into a few examples of the most interesting and compelling species that have existed in the past few million years.”