How did humans come to be? What sets us apart from the other human species we used to live side by side with? And why are we the last human standing?
In this course, we will explore human evolution, from its anthropological and archaeological aspects (fossils, stone tools, cave paintings, and more) to its genetic and molecular basis. We will focus on the ancient DNA revolution and how it provided unprecedented access to the genetic changes that shaped human lineages. We will study the processes that shape our evolution, from positive selection through admixture to speciation, and the computational genomic methods to detect these processes.
The final six meetings will be devoted to student presentations of key concepts, works and open questions in human evolution.