SoSe 2011

Johannes Krause

_{Zentrum für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, University of Tübingen, Germany}

_{Institute of Human Genetics, University of Tübingen, Germany}

_{Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department Evolutionary Genetics, Leipzig, Germany}

Thema: Pleistocene “Affairs”

A genetic comparison between modern humans and their extinct relatives could both address the relationship between us and them and offer the possibility to identify genetic changes that happened specifically on the human lineage. Using a combination of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and multiple improvements in ancient DNA retrieval, the Leipzig laboratory has recently, in collaboration with several groups, completed a first version of the Neandertal genome as well as a genome sequence of an extinct hominin discovered in the Altai mountains in southern Siberia named Denisovan. The analysis of both the Neandertal and Denisovan genome revealed evidence of geneflow between certain modern human populations and both extinct hominins.

H.-P. Uerpmann

Thema: "Finds and findings at Jebel Faya (UAE) and the Out of Africa Hypothesis"

Vangelis Tourloukis

Thema: The Lower Palaeolithic record of Greece and the role of the wider Aegean region in early hominin dispersal patterns: new data and interpretations

Olga Gorbanenko (Master in Coal Geology at Lomonosov Moscow State University)

Thema: “Petrography and depositional environment of the Odin coal seam (Ruhr Basin)”

Abstract:

Series of 44 coal and clastic rock samples of Upper Carboniferous ( Westphalian) age were studied by petrological and geochemical methods in order to determine their depositional environments. These samples were selected from 6m cores of Hearvest №5 well (Ruhr Basin), from depth between 797 and 803 m. The petrographic study of odin coal seam from Ruhr basin indicates a vitrinite-rich composition. However, inertinite presents a very irregular distribution, being fusinite dominant over virtinite in a few slices. Liptinite content reached 20 per cent. Coal-facies analysis based on petrographic parameters, as GI and TPI, and geochemical results indicate that odin coal seam was deposited in dry and wet forest swamps.

Tom Rein

Thema: "Function, phylogeny, and the forelimb: inference of extinct catarrhine locomotion"

Abstract:

Due to unique combinations of forelimb traits identified in the catarrhine fossil record, it has been difficult to accurately infer the locomotor profile of these extinct species. Some traits, however, might be more useful than others in determining locomotor function due to varying degrees of phylogenetic and developmental constraints acting on different aspects of the forelimb. This study examined the relative correspondence between different parts of the forelimb skeleton and four locomotor behaviors while taking into account phylogenetic relationships among extant taxa. Using the most accurate regression models, proportions of locomotor behavior were also inferred for two extinct species, Proconsul heseloni and Australopithecus afarensis.