Susana Carvalho | University of Oxford (2025)

Access Archaeology offers a different publishing model for specialist academic material that migh... more Access Archaeology offers a different publishing model for specialist academic material that might traditionally prove commercially unviable, perhaps due to its sheer extent or volume of colour content, or simply due to its relatively niche field of interest. This could apply, for example, to a PhD dissertation or a catalogue of archaeological data. All Access Archaeology publications are available as a free-to-download pdf eBook and in print format. The free pdf download model supports dissemination in areas of the world where budgets are more severely limited, and also allows individual academics from all over the world the opportunity to access the material privately, rather than relying solely on their university or public library. Print copies, nevertheless, remain available to individuals and institutions who need or prefer them. The material is refereed and/or peer reviewed. Copy-editing takes place prior to submission of the work for publication and is the responsibility of the author. Academics who are able to supply printready material are not charged any fee to publish (including making the material available as a free-todownload pdf). In some instances the material is type-set in-house and in these cases a small charge is passed on for layout work. Our principal effort goes into promoting the material, both the free-to-download pdf and print edition, where Access Archaeology books get the same level of attention as all of our publications which are marketed through e-alerts, print catalogues, displays at academic conferences, and are supported by professional distribution worldwide.

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Background Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique hosts a large population of baboons, numbering o... more Background Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique hosts a large population of baboons, numbering over 200 troops. Gorongosa baboons have been tentatively identified as part of Papio ursinus on the basis of previous limited morphological analysis and a handful of mitochondrial DNA sequences. However, a recent morphological and morphometric analysis of Gorongosa baboons pinpointed the occurrence of several traits intermediate betweenP. ursinusandP. cynocephalus, leaving open the possibility of past and/or ongoing gene flow in the baboon population of Gorongosa National Park.In order to investigate the evolutionary history of baboons in Gorongosa, we generated high and low coverage whole genome sequence data of Gorongosa baboons and compared it to availablePapiogenomes. Results We confirmed thatP. ursinusis the species closest to Gorongosa baboons. However, the Gorongosa baboon genomes share more derived alleles withP. cynocephalusthanP. ursinusdoes, but no recent gene flow ...

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

Spatial information is crucial to archaeological field research. From the plane-table to the tota... more Spatial information is crucial to archaeological field research. From the plane-table to the total station, recent technological advances have enabled data collection to become fully digital and highly accurate. Nevertheless, the recent expansion of archaeological expeditions to novel environments often incompatible with modern mapping equipment, e.g. tropical forests or ephemeral shorelines, calls for further methodological innovations. Such projects, as well as those under logistic or financial limitations, are still largely reliant on more time consuming, less accurate, traditional approaches, e.g. offset or tape and compass methods. The DistoX2 is a digital, highly portable, and versatile hand-held instrument originally developed for speleological surveys where total stations and DGPSs are not feasible. However, the potential of the DistoX2 system as a spatial mapping tool in above-ground contexts has been surprisingly overlooked. Here, we present a first assessment of the applicability of the DistoX2 for archaeological mapping in non-speleological environments. We investigate precision and accuracy in controlled above-ground settings relative to two common methods of data collectiontotal station, and tape and compass. We test the relative precision of the DistoX2 when mounted on a tripod or operated in hand-held mode and discuss its applicability, and potential combined used, in the context of other increasingly popular methods-GNSS and SfM photogrammetry. With a mean error of ≈5.00 cm for horizontal readings and ≈2.00 cm for vertical readings, the DistoX2 is considerably more accurate than the tape and compass method (µ ≈ 67.00 cm horizontal; µ ≈ 3.00 cm vertical). While the DistoX2 exceeds the error thresholds of projects that require high spatial sensitivity (e.g. Palaeolithic excavations), it provides a reliable, low-cost and more accurate alternative to many projects that resort to more traditional methods. This fills an existent methodological and financial gap amongst the growing diversity of archaeological expeditions.

In the year of 2015, the Group of Studies in Human evolution (GEEvH) completed ten years of exist... more In the year of 2015, the Group of Studies in Human evolution (GEEvH) completed ten years of existence. Since its foundation, GEEvH’s has played an important role in the difficult task of communicating science in Portugal in the field of human evolution. In this paper, an overview of the main activities developed by GEEvH in the last decade as well as upcoming goals, will be provided. This approach will be framed by a short theoretical introduction to Charles Darwin’s Assis et al. /Cadernos do GEEvH 4 (1) 2015: 8-24 9 theories, highlighting the impact of evolutionary biology views in the Portuguese academic and schools settings. The current situation with regard to the teaching of human evolution in Portuguese schools will also be presented.

Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists a... more Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists and conservationists working to protect endangered species, we call for reflection on how the culture concept may be applied in practice. Here, we discuss both the potential benefits and potential shortcomings of applying the animal culture concept and propose a set of achievable milestones that will help guide and ensure effective integration of this concept into existing conservation frameworks, such as Adaptive Management cycles or Open Standards.

Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 2020

Science Advances, 2019

Wild ape face recognition using artificial intelligence opens the way for fully automated analysi... more Wild ape face recognition using artificial intelligence opens the way for fully automated analysis of large-scale video datasets.

Pan Africa News, 2010

Journal of Human Evolution, 2019

geographic clinal pattern of replacing allotaxa. We put forward the hypothesis of either past and... more geographic clinal pattern of replacing allotaxa. We put forward the hypothesis of either past and/or ongoing hybridization between the gray-footed chacma and southern yellow baboons in Gorongosa or an isolation-by-distance scenario in which the GNP baboons are geographically and morphologically intermediate. These two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. We highlight the potential of baboons as a useful model to understand speciation and hybridization in early human evolution.

Journal of Human Evolution, 2019

The newly described partial skeleton of Paranthropus boisei KNM-ER 47000 as well as the FwJj14E I... more The newly described partial skeleton of Paranthropus boisei KNM-ER 47000 as well as the FwJj14E Ileret footprints provide new evidence on the paleobiology and diversity of hominins from the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation at East Turkana about 1.5 Ma (million years ago). To better understand the ecological context of the Okote hominins, it is necessary to broaden the geographical focus of the analysis to include the entire Omo-Turkana ecosystem, and the temporal focus to encompass the early Pleistocene. Previous work has shown that important changes in the regional vegetation occurred after 2 Ma, and that there was a peak in mammalian turnover and diversity close to 1.8 Ma. This peak in diversity included the Hominini, with the species Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus co-occurring at around 1.8 Ma. There is considerable debate about whether H. habilis and H. rudolfensis indeed constitute separate species, but even if we consider them both as Homo habilis sensu lato, the co-occurrence of three hominin species at any one time and place is rather unusually high diversity for hominin standards (even if not so for other mammalian groups such as suids, bovids, or cercopithecids). Here we use mammalian faunal abundance data to place confidence intervals on first and last appearances of hominin species in the early Pleistocene of the Omo-Turkana Basin, and use these estimates to discuss hominin diversity in the Okote Member. We suggest that in the early Pleistocene a wide range of depositional environments and vegetation types, *Revised Manuscript Unmarked Click here to view linked References 2 along with a high frequency of volcanism, likely maintained high levels of environmental variability both in time and space across the Omo-Turkana region, and provided ecological opportunities for the coexistence of at least three hominin species alongside a diverse mammalian fauna.

Science, 2018

PeerJ, 2018

Humans help others even without direct benefit for themselves. However, the nature of altruistic ... more Humans help others even without direct benefit for themselves. However, the nature of altruistic (i.e., only the other benefits) and prosocial (i.e., self and other both benefit) behaviors in our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, remains controversial. To address this further, we developed a touch-screen-guided task that allowed us to increase the number of trials for a thorough test of chimpanzees' prosocial and altruistic tendencies. Mother-offspring dyads were tested in the same compartment; one was the actor while the other was the recipient. In Experiment 1, the actor chose among three options: prosocial, selfish (only the actor benefited) and altruistic. To better understand the nature of the chimpanzees' choices and to improve experimental control, we conducted two additional experiments. Experiment 2 consisted of two-option choices interspersed with three-option choices, and in Experiment 3 the two-option choice were blocked across all trials. The results of E...

Most developmental processes, from the molecular to the cognitive level, have many similarities t... more Most developmental processes, from the molecular to the cognitive level, have many similarities throughout the animal kingdom. The aim of the present study was to examine the evolution of human spatial cognition by contextualizing it in a developmental cognition framework. In order to achieve this, a thorough literature review on significant research was conducted, including data from primatology, cognitive science, archaeology and human evolution. The fascinating result of this literature review consists in the novel suggestion that ontogenic data can be useful for understanding human cognitive evolution. Further investigation in this field is required to achieve more conclusive results.

Royal Society Open Science, 2015

African apes and humans share a genetic mutation that enables them to effectively metabolize etha... more African apes and humans share a genetic mutation that enables them to effectively metabolize ethanol. However, voluntary ethanol consumption in this evolutionary radiation is documented only in modern humans. Here, we report evidence of the long-term and recurrent ingestion of ethanol from the raffia palm ( Raphia hookeri, Arecaceae) by wild chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) at Bossou in Guinea, West Africa, from 1995 to 2012. Chimpanzees at Bossou ingest this alcoholic beverage, often in large quantities, despite an average presence of ethanol of 3.1% alcohol by volume (ABV) and up to 6.9% ABV. Local people tap raffia palms and the sap collects in plastic containers, and chimpanzees use elementary technology—a leafy tool—to obtain this fermenting sap. These data show that ethanol does not act as a deterrent to feeding in this community of wild apes, supporting the idea that the last common ancestor of living African apes and modern humans was not averse to ingesting foods conta...

PloS one, 2015

Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evol... more Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary roots of technology during human evolution. However, detailed analyses of chimpanzee stone artifacts are still lacking, thus precluding a comparison with the earliest archaeological record. This paper presents the first systematic study of stone tools used by wild chimpanzees to crack open nuts in Bossou (Guinea-Conakry), and applies pioneering analytical techniques to such artifacts. Automatic morphometric GIS classification enabled to create maps of use wear over the stone tools (anvils, hammers, and hammers/ anvils), which were blind tested with GIS spatial analysis of damage patterns identified visually. Our analysis shows that chimpanzee stone tool use wear can be systematized and specific damage patterns discerned, allowing to discriminate between active and passive pounders in lithic assemblages. In summary, our results demonstrate the heuristic potential of combined suit...

Trends in ecology & evolution, Jan 9, 2015

We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the grea... more We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the great apes, must keep pace with the rate that our species is driving change. While a goal of many studies is to understand how great apes behave in natural contexts, the impact of human activities must increasingly be taken into account. This is both a challenge and an opportunity, which can importantly inform research in three diverse fields: cognition, human evolution, and conservation. No long-term great ape research site is wholly unaffected by human influence, but research at those that are especially affected by human activity is particularly important for ensuring that our great ape kin survive the Anthropocene.

The concept of evolution is fundamental to the teaching of biological sciences. Nevertheless, it ... more The concept of evolution is fundamental to the teaching of biological sciences. Nevertheless, it seems frequently neglected and/or forgotten in our classrooms and absent from the school syllabus. These difficulties are present today in the Portuguese educational system, especially concerning the issue of human evolution. To overcome this difficulty, a multidisciplinary pilot project entitled Playing with the Big Tree of Evolution was developed by a nonprofit association called Group of Studies in Human Evolution in Portuguese schools and in other public and private organizations. Combining non-formal and informal apprenticeship, the project is composed of a set of pedagogical and experimental activities that aim to promote the broad concept of human evolution as well as to demystify the anthropocentric perspective that places humans at the top of the chain of life. Keywords Evolutionism. Non-formal and informal learning. Pedagogical activities. GEEvH (Group of Studies in Human Evolution). Portugal This paper was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal [grant reference: SFRH/BD/36739/2007, Sandra Assis].

Access Archaeology offers a different publishing model for specialist academic material that migh... more Access Archaeology offers a different publishing model for specialist academic material that might traditionally prove commercially unviable, perhaps due to its sheer extent or volume of colour content, or simply due to its relatively niche field of interest. This could apply, for example, to a PhD dissertation or a catalogue of archaeological data. All Access Archaeology publications are available as a free-to-download pdf eBook and in print format. The free pdf download model supports dissemination in areas of the world where budgets are more severely limited, and also allows individual academics from all over the world the opportunity to access the material privately, rather than relying solely on their university or public library. Print copies, nevertheless, remain available to individuals and institutions who need or prefer them. The material is refereed and/or peer reviewed. Copy-editing takes place prior to submission of the work for publication and is the responsibility of the author. Academics who are able to supply printready material are not charged any fee to publish (including making the material available as a free-todownload pdf). In some instances the material is type-set in-house and in these cases a small charge is passed on for layout work. Our principal effort goes into promoting the material, both the free-to-download pdf and print edition, where Access Archaeology books get the same level of attention as all of our publications which are marketed through e-alerts, print catalogues, displays at academic conferences, and are supported by professional distribution worldwide.

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Background Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique hosts a large population of baboons, numbering o... more Background Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique hosts a large population of baboons, numbering over 200 troops. Gorongosa baboons have been tentatively identified as part of Papio ursinus on the basis of previous limited morphological analysis and a handful of mitochondrial DNA sequences. However, a recent morphological and morphometric analysis of Gorongosa baboons pinpointed the occurrence of several traits intermediate betweenP. ursinusandP. cynocephalus, leaving open the possibility of past and/or ongoing gene flow in the baboon population of Gorongosa National Park.In order to investigate the evolutionary history of baboons in Gorongosa, we generated high and low coverage whole genome sequence data of Gorongosa baboons and compared it to availablePapiogenomes. Results We confirmed thatP. ursinusis the species closest to Gorongosa baboons. However, the Gorongosa baboon genomes share more derived alleles withP. cynocephalusthanP. ursinusdoes, but no recent gene flow ...

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

Spatial information is crucial to archaeological field research. From the plane-table to the tota... more Spatial information is crucial to archaeological field research. From the plane-table to the total station, recent technological advances have enabled data collection to become fully digital and highly accurate. Nevertheless, the recent expansion of archaeological expeditions to novel environments often incompatible with modern mapping equipment, e.g. tropical forests or ephemeral shorelines, calls for further methodological innovations. Such projects, as well as those under logistic or financial limitations, are still largely reliant on more time consuming, less accurate, traditional approaches, e.g. offset or tape and compass methods. The DistoX2 is a digital, highly portable, and versatile hand-held instrument originally developed for speleological surveys where total stations and DGPSs are not feasible. However, the potential of the DistoX2 system as a spatial mapping tool in above-ground contexts has been surprisingly overlooked. Here, we present a first assessment of the applicability of the DistoX2 for archaeological mapping in non-speleological environments. We investigate precision and accuracy in controlled above-ground settings relative to two common methods of data collectiontotal station, and tape and compass. We test the relative precision of the DistoX2 when mounted on a tripod or operated in hand-held mode and discuss its applicability, and potential combined used, in the context of other increasingly popular methods-GNSS and SfM photogrammetry. With a mean error of ≈5.00 cm for horizontal readings and ≈2.00 cm for vertical readings, the DistoX2 is considerably more accurate than the tape and compass method (µ ≈ 67.00 cm horizontal; µ ≈ 3.00 cm vertical). While the DistoX2 exceeds the error thresholds of projects that require high spatial sensitivity (e.g. Palaeolithic excavations), it provides a reliable, low-cost and more accurate alternative to many projects that resort to more traditional methods. This fills an existent methodological and financial gap amongst the growing diversity of archaeological expeditions.

In the year of 2015, the Group of Studies in Human evolution (GEEvH) completed ten years of exist... more In the year of 2015, the Group of Studies in Human evolution (GEEvH) completed ten years of existence. Since its foundation, GEEvH’s has played an important role in the difficult task of communicating science in Portugal in the field of human evolution. In this paper, an overview of the main activities developed by GEEvH in the last decade as well as upcoming goals, will be provided. This approach will be framed by a short theoretical introduction to Charles Darwin’s Assis et al. /Cadernos do GEEvH 4 (1) 2015: 8-24 9 theories, highlighting the impact of evolutionary biology views in the Portuguese academic and schools settings. The current situation with regard to the teaching of human evolution in Portuguese schools will also be presented.

Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists a... more Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists and conservationists working to protect endangered species, we call for reflection on how the culture concept may be applied in practice. Here, we discuss both the potential benefits and potential shortcomings of applying the animal culture concept and propose a set of achievable milestones that will help guide and ensure effective integration of this concept into existing conservation frameworks, such as Adaptive Management cycles or Open Standards.

Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 2020

Science Advances, 2019

Wild ape face recognition using artificial intelligence opens the way for fully automated analysi... more Wild ape face recognition using artificial intelligence opens the way for fully automated analysis of large-scale video datasets.

Pan Africa News, 2010

Journal of Human Evolution, 2019

geographic clinal pattern of replacing allotaxa. We put forward the hypothesis of either past and... more geographic clinal pattern of replacing allotaxa. We put forward the hypothesis of either past and/or ongoing hybridization between the gray-footed chacma and southern yellow baboons in Gorongosa or an isolation-by-distance scenario in which the GNP baboons are geographically and morphologically intermediate. These two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. We highlight the potential of baboons as a useful model to understand speciation and hybridization in early human evolution.

Journal of Human Evolution, 2019

The newly described partial skeleton of Paranthropus boisei KNM-ER 47000 as well as the FwJj14E I... more The newly described partial skeleton of Paranthropus boisei KNM-ER 47000 as well as the FwJj14E Ileret footprints provide new evidence on the paleobiology and diversity of hominins from the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation at East Turkana about 1.5 Ma (million years ago). To better understand the ecological context of the Okote hominins, it is necessary to broaden the geographical focus of the analysis to include the entire Omo-Turkana ecosystem, and the temporal focus to encompass the early Pleistocene. Previous work has shown that important changes in the regional vegetation occurred after 2 Ma, and that there was a peak in mammalian turnover and diversity close to 1.8 Ma. This peak in diversity included the Hominini, with the species Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus co-occurring at around 1.8 Ma. There is considerable debate about whether H. habilis and H. rudolfensis indeed constitute separate species, but even if we consider them both as Homo habilis sensu lato, the co-occurrence of three hominin species at any one time and place is rather unusually high diversity for hominin standards (even if not so for other mammalian groups such as suids, bovids, or cercopithecids). Here we use mammalian faunal abundance data to place confidence intervals on first and last appearances of hominin species in the early Pleistocene of the Omo-Turkana Basin, and use these estimates to discuss hominin diversity in the Okote Member. We suggest that in the early Pleistocene a wide range of depositional environments and vegetation types, *Revised Manuscript Unmarked Click here to view linked References 2 along with a high frequency of volcanism, likely maintained high levels of environmental variability both in time and space across the Omo-Turkana region, and provided ecological opportunities for the coexistence of at least three hominin species alongside a diverse mammalian fauna.

Science, 2018

PeerJ, 2018

Humans help others even without direct benefit for themselves. However, the nature of altruistic ... more Humans help others even without direct benefit for themselves. However, the nature of altruistic (i.e., only the other benefits) and prosocial (i.e., self and other both benefit) behaviors in our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, remains controversial. To address this further, we developed a touch-screen-guided task that allowed us to increase the number of trials for a thorough test of chimpanzees' prosocial and altruistic tendencies. Mother-offspring dyads were tested in the same compartment; one was the actor while the other was the recipient. In Experiment 1, the actor chose among three options: prosocial, selfish (only the actor benefited) and altruistic. To better understand the nature of the chimpanzees' choices and to improve experimental control, we conducted two additional experiments. Experiment 2 consisted of two-option choices interspersed with three-option choices, and in Experiment 3 the two-option choice were blocked across all trials. The results of E...

Most developmental processes, from the molecular to the cognitive level, have many similarities t... more Most developmental processes, from the molecular to the cognitive level, have many similarities throughout the animal kingdom. The aim of the present study was to examine the evolution of human spatial cognition by contextualizing it in a developmental cognition framework. In order to achieve this, a thorough literature review on significant research was conducted, including data from primatology, cognitive science, archaeology and human evolution. The fascinating result of this literature review consists in the novel suggestion that ontogenic data can be useful for understanding human cognitive evolution. Further investigation in this field is required to achieve more conclusive results.

Royal Society Open Science, 2015

African apes and humans share a genetic mutation that enables them to effectively metabolize etha... more African apes and humans share a genetic mutation that enables them to effectively metabolize ethanol. However, voluntary ethanol consumption in this evolutionary radiation is documented only in modern humans. Here, we report evidence of the long-term and recurrent ingestion of ethanol from the raffia palm ( Raphia hookeri, Arecaceae) by wild chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) at Bossou in Guinea, West Africa, from 1995 to 2012. Chimpanzees at Bossou ingest this alcoholic beverage, often in large quantities, despite an average presence of ethanol of 3.1% alcohol by volume (ABV) and up to 6.9% ABV. Local people tap raffia palms and the sap collects in plastic containers, and chimpanzees use elementary technology—a leafy tool—to obtain this fermenting sap. These data show that ethanol does not act as a deterrent to feeding in this community of wild apes, supporting the idea that the last common ancestor of living African apes and modern humans was not averse to ingesting foods conta...

PloS one, 2015

Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evol... more Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary roots of technology during human evolution. However, detailed analyses of chimpanzee stone artifacts are still lacking, thus precluding a comparison with the earliest archaeological record. This paper presents the first systematic study of stone tools used by wild chimpanzees to crack open nuts in Bossou (Guinea-Conakry), and applies pioneering analytical techniques to such artifacts. Automatic morphometric GIS classification enabled to create maps of use wear over the stone tools (anvils, hammers, and hammers/ anvils), which were blind tested with GIS spatial analysis of damage patterns identified visually. Our analysis shows that chimpanzee stone tool use wear can be systematized and specific damage patterns discerned, allowing to discriminate between active and passive pounders in lithic assemblages. In summary, our results demonstrate the heuristic potential of combined suit...

Trends in ecology & evolution, Jan 9, 2015

We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the grea... more We are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, and research into our closest living relatives, the great apes, must keep pace with the rate that our species is driving change. While a goal of many studies is to understand how great apes behave in natural contexts, the impact of human activities must increasingly be taken into account. This is both a challenge and an opportunity, which can importantly inform research in three diverse fields: cognition, human evolution, and conservation. No long-term great ape research site is wholly unaffected by human influence, but research at those that are especially affected by human activity is particularly important for ensuring that our great ape kin survive the Anthropocene.

The concept of evolution is fundamental to the teaching of biological sciences. Nevertheless, it ... more The concept of evolution is fundamental to the teaching of biological sciences. Nevertheless, it seems frequently neglected and/or forgotten in our classrooms and absent from the school syllabus. These difficulties are present today in the Portuguese educational system, especially concerning the issue of human evolution. To overcome this difficulty, a multidisciplinary pilot project entitled Playing with the Big Tree of Evolution was developed by a nonprofit association called Group of Studies in Human Evolution in Portuguese schools and in other public and private organizations. Combining non-formal and informal apprenticeship, the project is composed of a set of pedagogical and experimental activities that aim to promote the broad concept of human evolution as well as to demystify the anthropocentric perspective that places humans at the top of the chain of life. Keywords Evolutionism. Non-formal and informal learning. Pedagogical activities. GEEvH (Group of Studies in Human Evolution). Portugal This paper was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal [grant reference: SFRH/BD/36739/2007, Sandra Assis].

O GEEvH é uma associação científica, criada em 2005, sem fins lucrativos, sedeada no Departamento... more O GEEvH é uma associação científica, criada em 2005, sem fins lucrativos, sedeada no Departamento de Ciências da Vida da Universidade de Coimbra, e criada pelos alunos do curso de Mestrado em Evolução Humana da Universidade de Coimbra. Assumiu a missão de incentivar a promoção, o desenvolvimento e a divulgação do ensino da evolução humana. Esta missão tem-se desenvolvido, principalmente, por via de actividades que passam, por exemplo, pela realização de ateliers pedagógicos para o público geral e escolar que dão a conhecer as mais recentes descobertas científicas no âmbito da evolução humana. A transmissão da informação faz-se com uma linguagem adequada aos públicos-alvo contemplando, também, uma vertente lúdica que visa cativar o interesse dos estudantes para a ciência em geral e a evolução humana em particular.
A premissa que tem presidido ao desenvolvimento destes ateliers pedagógicos assentou no facto da ciência, e o conhecimento produzido, se encontrarem em constante mutação o que dificulta a atualização dos conhecimentos pelos educadores, que muitas vezes têm que lidar com constrangimentos de tempo e recursos. Tendo em conta estes elementos considerou-se que os cientistas são determinantes na criação de interfaces para a transferência de saberes entre as universidades e centros de investigação para a comunidade. Neste processo, o associativismo científico assume um papel de destaque. Assim, recorrendo a actividades experimentais, a jogos didáticos e à apresentação multimédia em escolas, museus e exposições científicas tem-se conseguido transmitir conceitos-base da Paleoantropologia, Primatologia, Bioarqueologia e Arqueologia que ajudam a perceber os principais mecanismos subjacentes à Evolução Humana. Por esta via, entre 2005 a 2014, o GEEvH contactou com 1799 alunos do 1º ciclo do ensino básico de sete distritos de Portugal continental, permitindo que o conhecimento científico estivesse acessível a toda a população desde tenra idade.