Doctoral Dissertation Research: Paleontological and population genetics approaches for reconstructing hominin evolutionary history

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。本博士论文项目利用牙齿和骨骼数据重建了人类关键祖先直立人（Homo erectus）古代种群之间的进化关系。该项目整合了古生物学和种群遗传学方法来重建进化史，从而提高了对人类（包括我们的物种——智人）如何进化的认识。该项目通过使用生物考古领域常用的方法来促进跨学科，通过支持一位女性古人类学家的奖学金来增加古人类学领域的多样性，并促进国际研究合作。研究者通过一个关于人类进化的博客和与初高中学生的科学活动进行公众和K-12科学宣传。以古人类化石记录为代表的直立人在时间和空间上都具有形态多样性。目前对直立人种群之间的亲缘关系的了解是有限的。骨骼和牙齿解剖为评估化石记录中种群之间的进化关系提供了主要基础，但解剖特征的遗传基础并不总是很好地理解。本研究利用生物距离方法和比较数据，考察了直立人在过去直立人种群之间关系的时间和地理格局。牙齿和神经颅骨形状距离的矩阵将分别使用Mantel测试与描述种群之间时间、地理或遗传距离的矩阵进行比较。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This doctoral dissertation project reconstructs evolutionary relationships among ancient populations of Homo erectus, a pivotal human ancestor, using dental and skeletal data. The project integrates paleontological and population genetics approaches for reconstructing evolutionary history, thereby advancing knowledge about how hominins, including our species, Homo sapiens, evolved. The project promotes interdisciplinarity by using approaches typically used in the field of bioarchaeology, increases diversity in the field of paleoanthropology by supporting the scholarship of a female paleoanthropologist, and fosters international research collaborations. The investigator conducts public and K-12 science outreach through a weblog about human evolution and through science activities with middle and high school students.Homo erectus, represented in the hominin fossil record, is morphologically diverse through both time and space. The current understanding of how populations of H. erectus were related to each other is limited. Bony and dental anatomy provide the primary basis for assessing evolutionary relationships between populations in the fossil record, but the genetic basis of anatomical traits is not always well understood. This research examines H. erectus temporal and geographic patterns in the relationships among past H. erectus populations using biodistance methods and comparative data. Matrices of dental and neurocranial shape distances will be compared separately using Mantel tests to a matrix describing the temporal, geographic, or genetic distances between populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.