Wikipedia

Marta Mirazón Lahr

Dr. Marta Mirazón Lahr (born 1965) is a palaeoanthropologist and Director of the Duckworth Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

Marta Mirazón Lahr
Born1965 (age 58–59)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
OccupationEvolutionary Biologist
NationalityBritish & Argentinian
Alma materUniversity of São Paulo
University of Cambridge
PartnerRobert Foley (academic)

Academic career

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Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mirazon Lahr graduated in Biology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She later earned a Masters and PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Cambridge,[1] following which she was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Clare College. She was then an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology of University of São Paulo (1995–98), before returning to Cambridge in 1999 as a lecturer in Biological Anthropology and Fellow of Clare College.[2][3] Mirazon Lahr was promoted to University Reader in Human Evolutionary Biology in 2005.[4]

In 2001 Mirazon Lahr, with co-founder and husband Robert Foley,[5] established the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES) at the University of Cambridge, with funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Leverhulme Trust. The Centre was designed to provide a home for the Duckworth Collection, and up-to-date laboratories and facilities to support research in human evolution which integrated genetics, anthropology, and other fields.[6]

Mirazon Lahr was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2004.[7]

Research

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Lahr's research is in human evolution, and ranges across human and hominin morphology, prehistory and genetics. Her early work provided a test of the Multiregional Hypothesis of modern humans origins, and underlined much of the argument against models of regional continuity in traits between archaic and modern humans.[8] This research expanded into a fuller consideration of the origins of modern human diversity, published as a book in 1996 - The Evolution of Human Diversity - by Cambridge University Press.[9] Her subsequent research continues to explore human diversity from a number of different perspectives and methodological approaches, and includes archaeology, palaeobiology, genomics and human biology.[10][11][12]

She and Robert Foley were the first to propose a ‘southern route’ for humans out of Africa, and for human diversity to be the product of multiple dispersals as well as local adaptation.[11][12][13][14] She has led field projects in the Amazon, the Solomon Islands,[15][16] India, the Central Sahara[17] and Kenya,[18] the last two focusing on issues to do with the origins and dispersals of modern humans in Africa.

Mirazon Lahr is currently the director of the IN-AFRICA Project, an Advanced Investigator Award from the European Research Council (ERC) to examine the role of east Africa in modern human origins.[19] As part of the IN-AFRICA Project, she has led the excavations at the site of Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, establishing the existence of prehistoric warfare among nomadic hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago.[20]

She was interviewed alongside Richard and Meave Leakey as part of the documentary 'Bones of Turkana', a National Geographic Special about palaeoanthropology and human evolution in the Turkana Basin, Kenya.[21][22]

Selected publications

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References

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  1. ^ "The origins of modern humans: a test of the multiregional hypothesis". Cambridge University Library. Retrieved 2013-01-27.
  2. ^ "Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge". Clare College. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  3. ^ "Cambridge Reporter List of Elected Fellows at Clare College, Cambridge". Cambridge Reporter Online. Retrieved 2013-01-28.
  4. ^ "Cambridge Reporter List of University Promotions 2005". Cambridge Reporter Online. Retrieved 2013-01-30.
  5. ^ "Marta Mirazon Lahr". The Conversation. 2016-01-19. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  6. ^ "Features of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2012-12-26.
  7. ^ "Phillip Leverhulme Prize Winners 2004". The Leverhulme Trust. Archived from the original on 2013-06-10. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
  8. ^ Lahr, M. M. (1994). "The Multiregional Model of Modern Human Origins: A Reassessment of its Morphological Basis". Journal of Human Evolution. 26: 23–56. doi:10.1006/jhev.1994.1003.
  9. ^ Lahr, M. M. (1996) The evolution of modern human diversity, Cambridge: CUP.
  10. ^ Lahr, M. M. & Foley, R. (1994). "Multiple Dispersals and Modern Human Origins". Evolutionary Anthropology. 3 (2): 48–60. doi:10.1002/evan.1360030206. S2CID 86086352.
  11. ^ a b Lahr, M. M. & Foley, R. (1998). "Towards a theory of modern human origins: Geography, demography, and diversity in recent human evolution". Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. 41 (S27): 137–176. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(1998)107:27+<137::AID-AJPA6>3.0.CO;2-Q. PMID 9881525.
  12. ^ a b Foley, R. & Lahr, M. M. (1992). "Beyond 'Out of Africa': Reassessing the origins of Homo sapiens". Journal of Human Evolution. 22 (6): 523–529. doi:10.1016/0047-2484(92)90085-n.
  13. ^ Lahr, M. M. & Foley, R. (1994). "Multiple Dispersals and Modern Human Origins". Evolutionary Anthropology. 3 (2): 48–60. doi:10.1002/evan.1360030206. S2CID 86086352.
  14. ^ Foley, R. & Lahr, M. M. (1997). "Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 7 (1): 3–36. doi:10.1017/S0959774300001451. S2CID 163040120.
  15. ^ Ricaut, F-X., Thomas, T., Mormina, M., Cox, M. P., Belatti, M., Foley, R. A., Mirazón-Lahr, M. (2010). "Ancient Solomon Islands mtDNA: assessing Holocene settlement and the impact of European contact". Journal of Archaeological Science. 37 (6): 1161–1170. Bibcode:2010JArSc..37.1161R. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.12.014.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ Cox, M. P. & Mirazón-Lahr, M. (2006). "Y-chromosome diversity is inversely associated with language affiliation in paired Austronesian- and Papuan-speaking communities from Solomon Islands". American Journal of Human Biology. 18 (1): 35–50. doi:10.1002/ajhb.20459. PMID 16378340. S2CID 4824401.
  17. ^ Mirazón-Lahr, M., Foley, R., Armitage, S., Barton, H., Crivellaro, F., Drake, N., Hounslow, M., Maher, L., Mattingly, D., Salem, M., Stock, J., White, K. (2008). "DMP III: Pleistocene and Holocene palaeonvironments and prehistoric occupation of Fazzan, Libyan Sahara" (PDF). Libyan Studies. 39: 1–32. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-06. Retrieved 2013-02-19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ "In Africa (ERC Research Project)". Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  19. ^ "In Africa Project 2012-2017". http://www.in-africa.org. Retrieved 2013-01-30. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)
  20. ^ Lahr, M. Mirazón; Rivera, F.; Power, R. K.; Mounier, A.; Copsey, B.; Crivellaro, F.; Edung, J. E.; Fernandez, J. M. Maillo; Kiarie, C. (2016). "Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya". Nature. 529 (7586): 394–398. Bibcode:2016Natur.529..394L. doi:10.1038/nature16477. PMID 26791728. S2CID 4462435.
  21. ^ "Bones of Turkana Review of Educative Value". studenthandouts.com. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  22. ^ "Bones of Turkana National Geographic Special". pbs.org. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
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