Experiencing Human Origins in Southern Africa

This past November, 15 Dartmouth students put their classroom learning to the test when they journeyed to South Africa for the final three weeks of Anthropology 70: Experiencing Human Origins and Evolution. Students used newfound skills to advance independent research projects across a wide range of settings, including caves, deserts, and coasts. Hear from Professor of Anthropology Nate Dominy and Associate Professor of Anthropology Jeremy DeSilva, who developed and led this unique course, and learn about their own research in South Africa and how it informs their philosophy toward experiential learning at Dartmouth.

[@strugglewithme4922]

Love this kind of stuff!

[@samikirk05]

I'm totally addicted 😊

[@sgrannie9938]

I love the exuberance of the students; makes forget I’m old 🤓

[@adamrapson6437]

Surely the "Bore Stone" was used in a way like a modern (wheel) bearing puller? where the stick or digging tool is pointed in the right direction, with a stop point, and the STONE is slid up and down on the stick, thus creating a "Hammer Drill" or "Hammer Point" to dig into the hard earth? Seems a no brainer?

[@caseyjude5472]

36:42 - they grow nest to rocks….maybe the ones next to rocks are the only ones that survived to maturity? They probably grow everywhere, but the mole rats or other animals get the ones not growing by rocks. Lots of other animals on the landscape as well. Edit: Sasquatch also have a mid-tarsal break.

[@teresatestrake4639]

I was quite offended when the presenters referred to Austrolopithecus as "this thing". Very ignorant. Millions of years from now, will scientists refer to homo sapien fossils as "these things". Otherwise...absolutely fascinating.

[@toaojackson7447]

Austrolopithecines are things, he is significantly more knowledgeable on austrolopithecines than you are, he's out there doing the hard work so we can know more about them, but he's ignorant because he didn't use the word you prefer? Have some perspective, lady.

[@GrumpaGladstone1809]

I feel a great disturbance in the force. A million Australopithicines are turning in their graves, their ears on fire.

[@penzancegunner857]

Offended 🤣

[@brap5829]

He's a paid propagandist keeping his job!

[@marcverhaegen7943]

We were not "super-carnivorous"!! How can you be more carnivorous than felids?? And human evolution did not begin in southern Africa, but around the Indian Ocean. This video is unscientific biologically: Mio-Pliocene hominoids (apes, incl. australopiths) were already upright, but not for running: they typically waded bipedally & climbed arms overhead in swamp forests (like bonobos & lowland gorillas still do sometimes in forest swamps in search of waterlilies or sedges), google e.g. "aquarboreal ancestors". For the evolution of the genus Homo during the Ice Ages, google "coastal dispersal Pleistocene Homo PPT".

[@robintrehaeven6800]

Since more than half of the South African coastline, and all of Africa to its north, borders the Indian Ocean, I fail to understand how you are able to cite the Indian Ocean as an exclusionary factor. I'd venture to suggest that the swamp hypothesis is pretty weak also, given that the African continent as a whole, and the Eastern and Southern African parts of the continent in particular are, for the most part, too dry for swamps to persist as an evolutionarily significant environment. I've not been to Central and West Africa, but expect that, even in these regions, swamps are few and far between.

[@casteretpollux]

Please don't call your great-grandparent 'this thing'.

[@caseyjude5472]

They’re cousins, not ancestors.

[@beingnonbeing]

Please don't call our ancient grandparent a “thing” at 5:10

[@jeremybrown7214]

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