Reconstructing hominin phylogeny using a combined genomic-morphometric approach.

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Scientific breakthroughs in evolutionary genomics have revolutionised our understanding of hominin evolution. But combining genomic insights with studies of hominin morphology has proved challenging, and the inferred dates for key evolutionary events using genomic datasets have been difficult to reconcile with the morphological evidence. Bayesian statistics provides a method for bridging this gap. Molecular methods of estimating species divergence times provide only relative distance between species. By applying Bayesian methods to model morphological evolution, the morphological distance between species can be similarly derived with the added benefit of applicability to securely dated fossil remains, grounding morphological distance in geological time. Using this method, divergence times and evolutionary rates of morphological change can therefore be estimated with greater certainty, incorporating information from both genomic and morphometric data. This project will be the first to apply this combined genomic-morphometric approach to human evolution. Using the relationship between genomic and morphological variation in modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans, the evolutionary relationships and divergence times in the rest of the hominin line will be inferred. The project will provide new insights into the evolutionary processes underlying hominin evolution, from key drivers of morphological and genetic variation to their relationship to geographical and paleoclimatic events.