I’ve jumped across some continents, to Calgary for the 83rd annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. It’s a frenetic few days to catch up with close friends and colleagues, and to discuss upcoming projects. Also hopefully there will be poutine. You can follow the conference goings-on on Twitter with the hashtag #AAPA2014.
I’ll be presenting some work I began last summer (first blogged here), as part of a symposium in honor of Alan Mann. Mann was one of the first researchers to point out the similarities in dental development between humans and australopithecines, and his book Some Paleodemographic Aspects of the South African Australopithecines (1975) was an important resource in my dissertation research. In my current project, I try to identify traits in the lower jaw that follow a similar pattern of size growth as the rest of the body, to reconstruct growth in extinct species that are represented mostly by jaw fossils.
If you’re interested in what I’ve found, come and find me at my poster Saturday afternoon. If you can’t make it, here’s the poster I’ll be presenting:
Lawn Chair Anthropology 