TALK DESCRIPTION
The modern “paleo” diet movement makes many assumptions about what our ancient human ancestors ate. But are these assumptions based on actual evidence? Presenting a variety of lines of evidence for prehistoric human diets including early human, animal, and plant fossils, ancient stone tools, DNA, and living human and chimpanzee diets, Dr. Briana Pobiner will discuss significant changes in the evolution of human diets – and highlight what makes human meat-eating unique.

Briana Pobiner Bio:
Briana Pobiner is a paleoanthropologist whose research centers on the evolution of human diet (with a focus on meat-eating). She has done research in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Romania, and Indonesia and has been supported in her research by the Fulbright-Hays program, the Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, Rutgers University, the Society for American Archaeology, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Her favorite field moments include falling asleep in a tent in the Serengeti in Tanzania while listening to the distant whoops of hyenas, watching a pride of lions eat a zebra carcass on the Kenyan equator, and discovering fossil bones that were last touched, butchered and eaten by one of her 1.5-million-year-old ancestors.

Briana joined the Smithsonian in 2005, and helped develop the Hall of Human Origins. She has continued her active field, laboratory, and experimental research programs and leads the Human Origins Program’s education and outreach efforts. She also manages the Human Origins Program’s public programs, website content, social media, and exhibition volunteer training.

In 2021, Briana was the recipient of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and Leakey Foundation 2021 Communication and Outreach Award and a National Center for Science Education Friend of Darwin Award.