The ASU Institute of Human Origins presents Ian Tattersall, Curator Emeritus of Human Origins, American Museum of Natural History, speaking about "The Origins of Modern Human Cognition."

Modern human beings process information symbolically, rearranging mental symbols according to rules to envision multiple potential realities. They also express the ideas thus formed using structured articulate language. No other living creature does either of these things, reflecting a qualitative cognitive gulf between modern Homo sapiens and every other species in the Great Tree of Life on the planet. Yet it is evident that we are descended from an ancestor that was both nonsymbolic and nonlinguistic. How did the astonishing transformation to modern cognition occur? Was it simply a passive result of the increase in brain size that typified multiple lineages of the genus Homo over the Pleistocene? Dr. Tattersall presents what the scrutiny of the fossil and archaeological records reveals to answer these fascinating questions in our evolutionary history.

The ASU Institute of Human Origins is one of the preeminent research organizations in the world for the study of human origins across the broadest range of transdisciplinary research to create novel approaches to the solution of pressing and newly emerging scientific questions relevant to our society—from the emergence of modern humans in Africa, and human behavioral and genetic adaptations to a changing planet, to what understanding the behavioral ecology of nonhuman primates informs us about how we developed culture and cooperation.

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