• ASU researcher Curtis Marean has spent over 20 years excavating caves in South Africa. He wants to learn about the relationship between climate and environmental change and human evolution.

Ask An Anthropologist

Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.

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Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.

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A Brief History of History

What does it mean to be human? Take a look at the story of how we became…well…us. The search for our first ancestors who looked and acted like people today is the search for what it means to be human.
Link Tools in the Stone Age

Chipping Away: Tools in the Stone Age

Since long ago, the survival of our ancestors has depended in part on technology. Even today, the shoes you put on and the car you drive are both built on previous discoveries. We can trace human technological developments way back to over three million years ago.
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The Setting for Science

If you like being outdoors, digging up bones, and doing science, then check out what it’s like to be an anthropologist.
A hand pulls a orange rope through a tube. Shadows in the background look like another person is doing the same thing from far away

Pull it off

Even very young human children can learn simple games such as working together to pull a board. They can also figure out a fair way to share the rewards from cooperating. This activity may seem simple, but humans are the only animals with the ability and desire to work together and negotiate a fair deal in this way.