The XLVI JAR Distinguished Lecture, celebrating UNM Anthropology PhD Alumni on the 90^th Anniversary of the Department, the 80^th Anniversary of Anthropological Serial Publishing at UNM and (almost) 75 Years of the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology/ Journal of Anthropological Research, will take place on Thursday,  March 8 at 7:30 pm in Anthropology Lecture Hall 163, followed by a specialized seminar on Friday, March 9 at noon in Anthropology 248.  Drs Steven L. Kuhn,  Riecker Distinguished  Professor (UNM Anthropology PhD, 1990) and Mary C. Stiner, Regents Professor (UNM Anthropology PhD, 1990) at the School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ will present the following:

Before the Neanderthals:  How Hearth and Home Made us Human (Public Lecture)

A central question in anthropology is what makes human beings unique in the animal world. A defining feature of human existence is the way that we organize our social and family lives in space. Anthropologists have long recognized that base camps, places to which food is carried and shared, and where many other activities occur, are central features in the lives of hunter-gatherers. Consequently, paleoanthropologists have been consumed by the search for base camps / home bases among early hominins for decades. A range of evidence now suggests that this essential feature of human life emerged in the Middle Pleistocene by 400,000 years ago (if not earlier), in the stem lineage that gave rise to Neanderthals, Anatomically Modern Humans, and the so-called Denisovans. Choices of where to live, the organization of stone tool making, butchery patterns, and widespread evidence of controlled use of fire at this time suggest a profound reorganization of the economics of daily life. These Middle Pleistocene campsites may not have functioned in exactly the same ways as those of more recent periods. They nonetheless set the stage for the evolution of many fundamental human tendencies and behavioral institutions.

Admission to the public lecture is free and open to the community.

Specialized Seminar (for Students and Faculty):

Burials and Beads: Dimensions of Symbolism in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic

Friday, March 9, 12 noon

Anthropology Rm. 248