Computer-Assisted Paleoanthropology

Computer-assisted Paleoanthropology allies research in palaeoanthropology / physical anthropology and informatics / computational sciences, while simultaneously maintaining close links to biomedical imaging and clinical applications. The principal thrust of our group is analysis of developmental morphology in primates and humans with an evolutionary perspective: comparing data from fossils with data from living species, and with data from computer models.

This combined approach reflects our vision that questions relating to hominin evolution and development are addressed most appropriately in three ways:

• by observing patterns resulting from past and present evolutionary / developmental events,
• by performing experiments on extant species, and
• by incorporating computer models.

Computer simulations build an essential link between the first and second, as they permit exploration of the properties of evolutionary / developmental model systems incorporating theoretical and empirical data.