Friday Talk: New Ideas on Recent Human Evolution

Chris Stringer is a Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum. His early research was on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but he now collaborates with palaeontologists, archaeologists, Earth scientists and geneticists in attempting to reconstruct the evolution of modern humans globally. He directed the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project from 2001 until it finished in 2013 and is now co-director of the follow-up Pathways to Ancient Britain project, as part of funding from the Calleva Foundation, which has contributed to the foundation of a new Centre for Human Evolution Research at the Museum. He has authored/co-authored numerous papers and books on human evolution and is active on Twitter @ChrisStringer65.

Many of the supposed certainties of later Pleistocene human evolution have been swept away in the last decade or so. In this talk Chris will look at some of the outstanding questions in research about our origins, including the evolution and relationships of Neanderthals, Denisovans and our species Homo sapiens, and how we came to be the only humans left on Earth.

Admission to the talk is £5 for museum members, £8 for non-members.

We expect this talk to be very popular and numbers may need to be limited. Admission will be on a first come, first served basis: to reserve your place please contact us or call in at the Museum.

Drinks and light refreshments will be available from 7 pm (in the Parish Centre garden if the weather is fine), and the talk will start at 7:30.

We have a wide variety of talks about our history and heritage from a range of expert speakers lined up for Spring and Autumn 2023. These will take place on Fridays (usually, but not always, the last Friday of the month) at the Parish Centre in Blandford. Please see our Events Calendar for the dates and details of other talks.