About Palaeoanthropology

At UNE, palaeoanthropology focuses on the fossil skeletal evidence for the origin, evolution and dispersion of humans, and their extinct relatives.

At first year level equal time is given to the biological background to evolution, and the evidence provided by the fossil record. Appropriate behavioural inferences are developed from the fossil evidence, aided by comparisons with living primates.

Other units in the Palaeoanthropology stream examine specific aspects of human evolution, like the origins of bipedal locomotion and increasing brain size, in greater detail.

For advanced students there is a unit in Forensic Anthropology. This provides an exercise in problem solving where students use skeletal remains, and other forensic evidence, to complete case reports.

All of these units are available to students in both the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Science, and the Faculty of Science.