Evolution
Channel Details
Evolution
UCTV presents experts exploring the diversity of life on Earth and the evolutionary forces that shape it.
Recent Episodes
99 episodes
CARTA: Body Modification - Questions Answers and Closing Remarks
Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans, not observed in other mammals. Despite being costly and risky, it is regul...
CARTA: Lip Plates in Ethiopia with Shauna LaTosky
In the literature on lip plates in Southern Ethiopia there has been a strong emphasis on their socio-cultural importance and little information about...
CARTA: The Recent History of Piercing Practices in Europe and North America with Paul King
Across continents, material evidence of body piercing jewelry abounds in the archeological record. However, the varying procedures and processes of pi...
CARTA: Permanent Body Modification in Mesoamerica and Central America with Rosemary Joyce
Archaeological research in Mexico and Central America reveals insights into cultural practices, focusing on the history of body modification. Examinin...
CARTA: Female and Male Genital Modification with Ellen Gruenbaum
This talk offers an overview of the many forms of permanent genital modifications embedded in human cultures, where they occur, the reasons why, the a...
CARTA: Dental Ablation and Facial Piercing in Late Pleistocene Southwestern Asia and Africa with John Willman
Bioarchaeological studies of Pleistocene populations, examining practices like tooth ablation, facial piercing, and cranial modification, contribute t...
CARTA: Permanent Body Modification: Archaeological and Early Historical Evidence with Brea McCauley
Today, permanent body modification (PBM) is very popular. Studies suggest that well over a billion living people have experienced one or more types of...
CARTA: A Multistep Evolutionary Scenario for the Culturalization of the Human Body with Francesco d'Errico
Our ability to adapt our bodies to culture has ancient origins. We suggest a timeline for how the culturalization of the human body evolved, starting...
CARTA: Body Modification - Welcome and Opening Remarks
Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans, not observed in other mammals. Despite being costly and risky, it is regul...
CARTA: The Recent History of Tattooing in Europe and North America with Matt Lodder
This talk presents a new account of the development of professional tattooing in Britain and America since the late 19th century. Research based exclu...
CARTA: Footbinding: A Gene-Culture Co-evolutionary Approach to a One Thousand Year Tradition with Ryan Nichols
This talk explores the 1000-year practice of "footbinding" in ethnically Han Chinese families, involving modifying young girls' feet by wrapping the t...
CARTA: CompAnth - Questions Answers and Closing Remarks
Comparative Anthropogeny (CompAnth) is the study of distinctly human traits and characteristics in the context of comparisons with our closest living...
CARTA: CompAnth - Welcome and Opening Remarks
Comparative Anthropogeny (CompAnth) is the study of distinctly human traits and characteristics in the context of comparisons with our closest living...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Language: Uniqueness Out of the Ordinary with Eva Wittenberg
Human language is a strong contender for the title of most often named species-specific feature in the literature. But why is that? In this talk, Eva...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Did Humans Evolve Concealed Ovulation? with Pascal Gagneux
Human ovulation lacks visible signs, unlike chimpanzees and bonobos with conspicuous genital swellings during fertility. This led to the concept of "c...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - The Evolution of Shorter Inter-birth Intervals in Humans with Corinna Most
Life history theory suggests that inter-birth intervals (IBIs) depend on a trade-off between maternal investment in current and future offspring, infl...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Insight into Human-specific Adaptations to High Altitude with Tatum Simonson
High-altitude adaptation stands out as one of the most notable examples of evolution within our species. Despite similar challenges of decreased oxyge...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - How Special are Our Neanderthal Genes? with Andrew Schork
The human genome contains segments of DNA with non-human origins. This introgressed genetic material is remnants of mating events between early modern...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Social Complexity: Why Modern Humans are More Like Ants Than Chimpanzees with Mark Moffett
The most complex organizations in the living world beside those of humans are the colonies of ants. Mark Moffett will argue that points of comparison...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Ethnology as a Tool for Understanding Human Evolution with Mark Collard
Ethnology, also known as cross-cultural analysis or comparative anthropology, involves comparing features of historically documented human societies....
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - Delayed Neuronal Maturation in Humans with Carol Marchetto
Since humans split from their primate ancestors, their brains evolved with a larger mass relative to body weight, more cortical neurons, and distinct...
CARTA: Comparative Anthropogeny - A Weakly Structured Stem for our Origins in Africa with Brenna Henn
We know Homo sapiens started in Africa, but we're uncertain about how they spread. Limited fossils and data have hindered our understanding. I'll disc...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Questions Answers and Closing Remarks
The human penchant for storytelling is universal, early-developing, and profoundly culture-shaping. Stories (folk tales, narratives and myths) influen...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - The Salience of Animals and the Trickster in San and Hunter-gatherer Mythology with Mathias Guenther
Animals and tricksters are highly prominent beings in the mythology of the San Bushmen of southern Africa, as well as of hunter-gatherers in other reg...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Topologies of Belief: Folklore Conspiracy Theories and Threat with Timothy Tangherlini
Political, financial and environmental crises coupled to the rise of social media have, in recent years, created a perfect storm of mis- and disinform...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Writing Plague: Myth Morality and Modernity with Mark Honigsbaum
In the foundational texts of Western civilisation (the Bible, Iliad), plagues are symbols of divine retribution, signifying Godly displeasure with hum...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Stories of Fire: Origins Interactions and Futures with Michael Chazan
As the global response to climate change drives a profound reevaluation of our interaction with fire, there's a timely opportunity to delve into the r...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - All the Stories Animals Don't Tell with Daniel Povinelli
Humans have been telling stories about animals as long as humans have been telling stories. One story humans tell about animals is the one about how,...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Symposium Welcome and Opening Remarks
The human penchant for storytelling is universal, early-developing, and profoundly culture-shaping. Stories (folk tales, narratives and myths) influen...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Hunting Hypothesis and Male Myths in Anthropogeny wth Karen Kramer
The hunting hypothesis proposes that the dietary shift to meat procurement was the catalyst favoring a suite of transformative human biological and be...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Firelit Stories: Creating Imaginary Communities with Polly Wiessner
Some 350 to 400,000 years ago when our ancestors gained control of fire, the day was extended to provide many hours for social interaction, undisturbe...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Why Humans Tell Stories with Brian Boyd
Why are humans a compulsively storytelling species? Why especially do we invent stories, why do we tell one another stories that both teller and audie...
CARTA: The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny - Folktales Animals and the Human Search for Origins with Brandon Barker
For more than a century, folklorists have indexed a vast number of the world’s folkloric narratives according to varying structures (i.e. tale types)...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - Questions Answers and Closing Remarks
The origin of humans is a difficult scientific problem in evolution that is grounded in biology and molded by culture. Recent advances in neuroscience...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - The Evolution of Syntax and Pragmatics in a Gradualist Scenario with Eva Wittenberg
Pragmatics poses a headache to developers of artificial systems. But how did language evolve to efficiently relay so much pragmatic trickery? Eva Witt...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - The Parallel Architecture in Language and Elsewhere with Ray Jackendoff
Parallel Architecture is a theory of the mental representations involved in the language faculty. These representations are organized in three orthogo...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - Evolution of Birdsong Learning and Human Spoken Language with Erich Jarvis
Vocal learning is one of the most critical components of spoken language. It has only evolved several independent times among mammals and birds. Altho...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - Common Sense and AI with Gerd Gigerenzer
Common sense is shared knowledge about people and the physical world, enabled by the biological brain. It comprises intuitive psychology, intuitive ph...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - Human Languages and Their Cognition(s) with Damián Blasi
The emergence of language is routinely regarded as a major (or even the main) evolutionary transition in our species’ history. Much less attention and...
CARTA: Artificial Intelligence and Anthropogeny - Symposium Welcome and Opening Remarks
The origin of humans is a difficult scientific problem in evolution that is grounded in biology and molded by culture. Recent advances in neuroscience...