Talk: The Archeology of Us: How, Where and When did Homo Sapiens Evolve?

The quest to find the origins of Homo sapiens has been described as a “recipe for frustration” and an “unsolvable puzzle”. To this day, despite decades of research, the question of how, where and when our species emerged remains as hotly debated as ever. In this talk, Cambridge PhD student Oscar Lozada guides us through the latest archaeological evidence and most recent theories for the origins of our species in Africa, at the cutting edge of the current debate. How are new finds transforming our view of Homo sapiens? And what does this mean for how we define our species?
Oscar is a PhD student in Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, working on the famous Neanderthal skeletons from Shanidar Cave in Iraq. Prior to this, he worked for five years on sustainable development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa before deciding to return to university to fulfil his lifelong fascination with human origins. He completed a masters at the University of Oxford and has since excavated early human remains in the UK, Morocco and Iraqi Kurdistan. He has been a member of Humanists UK since 2018 and was a Young Humanists Committee Member in 2024.

As usual the main topic will be followed by hot beverages, yummy biscuits and some friendly chat. We hope you can join us.