Chris Stringer

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Chris Stringer (2012)

Christopher Brian Stringer , mostly: Chris Stringer , (born December 31, 1947 in East Ham in what is now Newham Borough of London ) is a British paleoanthropologist . He became internationally known as one of the leading exponents of the Out-of-Africa theory on the tribal history of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ). He is Head of Human Origins at the Natural History Museum in London and since 1995 visiting professor at the Royal Holloway College at the University of London .

Life

Chris Stringer attended East Ham Grammar School from 1959 to 1965 and studied anthropology at University College London from 1966 . After completing his bachelor's degree (1969), he moved to the University of Bristol , where he studied anatomy until he obtained a doctorate ( Ph.D. , 1974) in this subject. In 1990 he obtained a second doctoral degree (D.Sc.) , also in Bristol . Stringer has worked for the Natural History Museum since 1973, initially as Principal Scientific Officer , and since 1999 as Research Director of the Human Origins division on human tribal history.

Stringer has also been the director of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project since 2001 and the author of several award-winning books on paleoanthropological topics. He has been a member of the Royal Society since 2004 .

In 2012, Chris Stringer emphasized in his family tree hypothesis that he assumed the central position of Homo heidelbergensis as a link between Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens ; other paleoanthropologists assign the African finds identified here as heidelbergensis to Homo erectus . On the far right, Stringer suggests that some genetic abnormalities have been detected in Africa that seem to indicate a third gene flow from a previously unexplained pre- human population to anatomically modern humans. In the Asian Homo erectus , Stringer emphasizes the separation into Peking man and Java man , and he interprets Homo antecessor as an early European branch of Homo erectus . The origin of Homo floresiensis is unclear.

Research topics

In his work, Chris Stringer deals in particular with the Neanderthals and the anatomically modern people of Europe and their complex history. Already at the University of Bristol, on the basis of anatomical studies, he developed the certainty that the doctrine advocated by some paleoanthropologists in the 1970s that the Neanderthals were direct ancestors of modern humans was wrong. His comparative studies on various skulls - including the so-called Broken Hill Skull - rather gave indications that the early Neanderthals were more similar to modern humans than the later ones. In 1982 Günter Bräuer , who had analyzed the African finds and their dating at the end of the 1970s, presented his research results at the 1st International Congress for Paleoanthropology in Nice. They said that "only in Africa an evolution to humans took place and that this occurred there much earlier than in any other region of the world"; Since then, Bräuer has been one of the founders of the Out-of-Africa theory. These conclusions from studies on African fossils fit seamlessly with Stringer's findings from the analysis of bones found in European Neanderthals and made Stringer one of the most aggressive opponents of the hypothesis of the multiregional origin of modern humans . He saw himself later confirmed in this view, when genetic data also suggested the sole origin of humans in Africa.

Stringer has excavated in the UK, Gibraltar, Turkey and Morocco.

As director of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project , he is the co-author of numerous studies on the initial colonization of the British Isles by individuals of the genus Homo .

Awards

Works (selection)

Technical articles

  • Why we are not all multiregionalists now. In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Volume 29, No. 5, 2014, pp. 248–251, doi: 10.1016 / j.tree.2014.03.001 (Open Access)
  • The status of Homo heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908). In: Evolutionary Anthropology. Volume 21, No. 3, 2012, pp. 101-107, doi: 10.1002 / evan.21311 , full text (PDF)
  • with Jean-Jacques Hublin: New age estimates for the Swanscombe hominid, and their significance for human evolution. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 37, 1999, pp. 873–877, doi: 10.1006 / jhev.1999.0367 , full text (PDF; 77 kB)
  • The dates of Eden. In: Nature . Volume 331, No. 6157, 1988, pp. 565-566, doi: 10.1038 / 331565a0
  • with Peter Andrews : Genetic and Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Modern Humans. In: Science . Volume 239, No. 4845, 1988, pp. 1263-1268, doi: 10.1126 / science.3125610
  • with Jean-Jacques Hublin and Bernard Vandermeersch: The origin of anatomically modern humans in western Europe. In: Fred H. Smith, Frank Spencer (eds.): The origins of modern humans: a world survey of the fossil evidence. Liss, New York 1984, pp. 51-135
  • Some problems in Middle and Upper Pleistocene hominid relationships. In: D. Chivers, K. Joysey (Eds.): Recent advances in Primatology, Vol. 3: Evolution . Academic Press, London 1978, pp. 395-418
  • Population relationships of later Pleistocene hominids: a multivariate study of available crania. In: Journal of Archaeological Sciences. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 317-342, doi: 10.1016 / 0305-4403 (74) 90051-X

Books

  • The Origin of Our Species. Penguin / Allen Lane, 2011, ISBN 978-1846141409
    • published in the USA under the title: Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth. Times Books, 2012, ISBN 978-0805088915
  • with Peter Andrews : The Complete World of Human Evolution. Thames & Hudson, 2005, ISBN 978-0500051320 (2nd edition 2011, ISBN 978-0500288986 )
  • with Nick Ashton and Simon G. Lewis: The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain. Elsevier Science & Technology, 2010, ISBN 978-0444535979
  • Homo Britannicus: The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain. Penguin, 2007, ISBN 978-0141018133
  • with Robin McKie: African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity. Henry Holt & Co, 1997, ISBN 978-0805027594
  • with Clive Gamble: In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins. Thames & Hudson, 1993, ISBN 978-0500050705

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ East Ham Grammar School: ( July 5, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ) Notable Graduates. Dump dated May 23, 2011
  2. ^ Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project: Project Members.
  3. ↑ Chris Stringer: Comment: What makes a modern human. In: Nature. Volume 485, No. 7396, 2012, pp. 33-35 (here p. 34), doi: 10.1038 / 485033a
  4. ↑ Michael F. Hammer et al .: Genetic evidence for archaic admixture in Africa. In: PNAS. Volume 108, No. 37, 2011, pp. 15123-15128, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1109300108
  5. ^ 11th Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald Lecture 2012. In: Senckenberg. Nature - Research - Museum. Volume 142, Issue 9/10, 2012, pp. 334-335
  6. ↑ Ann Gibbons: Revolution in human evolution. In: Science. Volume 349, No. 6246, 2015, pp. 362–366, (here: p. 363), doi: 10.1126 / science.349.6246.362
  7. ↑ Chris Stringer: Population relationships of later Pleistocene hominids: a multivariate study of available crania. In: Journal of Archaeological Sciences. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 317-342, doi: 10.1016 / 0305-4403 (74) 90051-X
  8. ↑ Günter Bräuer : The origin was in Africa. In: Spectrum of Science. No. 3/2003, p. 40
  9. ↑ Chris Stringer, Peter Andrews : Genetic and Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Modern Humans. In: Science . Volume 239, No. 4845, 1988, pp. 1263-1268, doi: 10.1126 / science.3125610
  10. ^ Simon A. Parfitt et al .: Early Pleistocene human occupation at the edge of the boreal zone in northwest Europe. In: Nature . Volume 466, 2010, pp. 229-233, doi: 10.1038 / nature09117
  11. ^ Simon A. Parfitt et al .: The earliest record of human activity in northern Europe. In: Nature. Volume 438, 2005, pp. 1008-1012, doi: 10.1038 / nature04227
personal data
SURNAME Stringer, Chris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stringer, Christopher Brian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH East Ham