Host Sam Hopkins invites you to join
our Classmate Anne Skinner, in a discussion of

Early Human Migration to the Western Hemisphere

Anne Reynolds Skinner’s Yale Ph.D. (Chemistry) in 1965 did not lead her to her current work in paleoanthropology.  She got into this field about 1980 when she learned about electron spin resonance as a method of dating materials from a meeting of the Archaeometry Society (the application of physical science to archaeology) at Brookhaven.  Since then, Anne has been researching and analyzing materials sent to her by paleontologists and geologists to date the movements of our distant ancestors.  She uses sophisticated dating methods, to find the location of these fragments in time.  

In her talk, Anne will tease apart the threads of a number of waves of migration from Africa into Europe, revealing a fascinating history that stretches over thousands of years.  Anne will explain how we can know where and when the movements of early peoples traveled across the continents, from the earlier migrations of more primitive species of Homo. Her contribution to this research has been to establish the ages of sites known to have been occupied by either Homo sapiens or the Neanderthals, with a view to refining the time of Neanderthal extinction and/or the possibility of an overlap and inter-breeding. 

Anne will also talk about migration to the American continent.  Her research makes a distinction between the early “Clovis” arrivals and a "founding population" from the Bering Strait migration.  “Without overdoing the science,” Anne will also explain enough of her dating methods for us to understand the process.

Saturday, April 10^th from 1 to 3 pm Eastern

RSVP to Tom Blodgett by Wednesday, April 7^th  

with Migration as your subject line.  We will send you
    the Zoom log-in information a few days before the event.  

Thank you.  Hope to see you there.