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Hi, I'm Greg Downey I'm an anthropologist
from Macquarie University
Anthropologists study human diversity how
we live all over the world from the tundra
to the rain forests we even study other primates
- gorillas, chimpanzees.
This subject is Becoming Human in it we will
be talking about how evolution made us. How
of all the nine million species or more alive
today evolution produced this really unusual
balding hairless ape that walks on two legs,
has these fragile little babies and has these
really strange brains.
We will be covering four different areas.
First how we are distinctive, how to understand
the fingerprints of evolution on us.
Second how to think about evolutionary theory
what are those forces in nature? We will be
talking about our reproduction and our sexuality
and finally we will be discussing our unusual
brains and how they are a kind of game changer
for evolution.
The study of human of evolution feeds into
all kinds of fields, not just anthropology
and ancient history, but even into understanding
anatomy, psychology, biology even agriculture.
So come with me we will be talking about what
makes us so unusual. We'll discuss how we
became human.
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