Welcome to day 2!

Hi everyone!

Hope you all are doing well (it is rainy and foggy in Boone this morning).

Two things to get done today: the readings and signing up for a paleoanthropology site for our class project

First thing to do:
Today's readings are a bit different from what we might expect in a class about human evolution, but i think they are important in that they set the stage for thinking not just what is human evolution but how we can create more realistic models of human origins.
below are direct links to the three readings on the class Perusall site ( the are also on AsULearn)

• Athreya and Ackermann 2018 Colonialism Narratives Human Origins Asia Africa
• Dunsworth_2018_It is unethical to teach evolution without confronting racism and sexism
• Sterling_2015_Black Feminist Theory in Prehistory

The 3 readings all argue about how we can make paleoanthropology better by making it more inclusive of different ways of thought.
If you are interested in this topic, this review of a new book on human origins gives a nice overview. The book itself, Darwin's Hunch, is amazing and if you want to think more on these issues i highly recommend it

As you read, please make notes etc on the Perusall site. I see people have started to do this already and it makes me happy! You can always download the main articles from AsULearn to read offline and then come and make annotations later.
Note that while I hope you use your blogs all the time, by this Friday I'd like you to have written your response to the first prompt......

Write your first blog post based on the readings. One topic could be how your previous classes have dealt w/ the issues raised in the readings; examples of how this can be done better; or simply what you thought while reading the papers. You could also use the readings as a jumping off point for discussing other aspects of anthropology that intersect with these ideas.

Second thing to do:

For the semester, you will pick one site/fossil and investigate it (note: some are a lot more info-filled than others so you might want to investigate first). Sign up for one of them using the Google Sheet linked below. Over the course we are going to do a few things with these data(as seen on the syllabus):

1. create a Sutori presentation
2. use your knowledge to help make a location based game using Aris
3. bonus: make an infographic about a site/fossil

Check out the detail on the project here
Here is a link to a Google Sheet that lists hominin fossils:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15NREIlw57OPmHCAX61hv2ksrehYVjhPyj6zEHvhJNR4/edit?usp=sharing
Select whichever site you want and put your name next to it.






Note:
**Thursday, May 28th  we will have an optional Zoom hangout at 1 pm. EST Not required but i thought it might be fun. I'll do these at least once a week (more if you want) and we can chat about the articles etc and just see how everyone is doing.