Bournemouth University
About the event
Professor Matthew Bennett has spent several years pursuing footprints in the landscape throughout Africa, Europe and Central America. In this talk he shares some of his field experiences from the discovery of the Ileret footprints in 2009, to his work in Namibia on tiny children’s tracks.
He will show how this work has been transformed by digital technology and is being translated into practical tools applicable in forensic science. In time, he hopes that these tools will be adopted by law enforcement agencies both in the UK and overseas leading to improved criminal intelligence gathering.
Matthew will also talk about the launch of a new BU Institute – Institute for Studies in Landscape and Human Evolution (ISLHE), it’s research agenda and how staff and students can get involved. The evolution of our own species in parts of East Africa occurred with a backdrop of profound climate change. The prevailing idea is that our family tree with its many false branches and extinctions was determined at least in part by these climatic changes. But East Africa is a landscape of tectonics and volcanism; a dynamic landscape of change which may filter the impact of climate.
Matthew and his colleagues in ISLHE, particularly Dr Sally Reynolds who joined BU last summer, are re-framing questions about our evolution and placing them a landscape-orientated rather than climate perspective. Come and join him for this informal presentation to find out more about his own research journey and that of ISLHE.
Venue details
Poole House Refectory
Talbot Campus
Bournemouth University
BH12 5BB
UK