Friday November 2, 2012
- Social hour: 7:15-8:00
- Dinner: 8:00
- Presentation: 8:45
Dinner choices: Chicken marsala, salmon, vegetarian (cous-cous with veggies)
Cash bar is available
Cost is $35 per person.
Please bring cash or check payable to “Princeton Club of Michigan”
Please RSVP with dinner selection by October 31.
Alan Mann, PhD Professor of Anthropology
What Does It Mean To Be 'Human' and How Did We Evolve This Unique Capability?
Bio: Alan Mann (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley ) is a physical anthropologist with a primary interes in the fossil evidence for human evolution. His current research focuses on the evolution of the Neandertals and their relationships to modern peoples. A particular interest of his is the origin of language and its importance in the emergence of the quality of “humanness”.
He has done field work in South and East Africa, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and now works primarily in the southwest of France. He is co-director of the excavation of a Middle Paleolithic site in the Charente Department of southwest France where Princeton students excavated last summer as part of the university’s summer course on modern human origins.
He is the author of Some Paleodemographic Aspect of the South African Australopithecines and is the coauthor, with Mark Weiss, of Human Biology and Behavior: an Anthropological Perspective as well as more than 75 articles in professional journals and popular magazines. He has also written a children’s book on human evolution.
He has been a consultant for the National Geographic Society and is the Anthropology consultant for the World Book Encyclopedia. He has served as a consulting forensic anthropologist to many cities in the northeast and he says that discovering clues that helped to free an innocent young man from imprisonment was the best thing he has ever done.
Professor Mann teaches courses on human evolution, human adaptation, biological anthropology and the concept of race. Professor Mann also teaches a summer course which is held at the University of Bordeaux, where he holds a research appointment.
Dr. Mann is an avid (perhaps even a fanatical) cyclist. He commutes by bicycle from his house in Princeton every day, rain or shine and has cycle toured extensively throughout Europe. Each winter, he participates in both downhill and cross country skiing. He reads widely, especially historical fiction and histories, at the moment focusing on World War I. Finally, Dr. Mann is a woodworker and general handy person. He built his house in Philadelphia from scratch and is now occupied in designing and building furniture of modern design.
