On 4 November 2020, CRESIDA’s Professor Stuart Semple presented a webinar in our CRESIDA seminar series titled ‘Geladas, genes and the clouds of Venus – compression as a fundamental principle of biological information systems’. Abstract A fundamental goal of the life sciences is to identify universal biological principles – the basic rules of organisation that Read More…
Category: language
Spotlight on… Stuart Semple
Position: Professor in Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Roehampton Bio: Stuart completed his PhD in 1998 at the University of Sussex with a dissertation on the topic of female copulation calls in barbary macaques. After completing his doctorate, he held a research fellowship at the Institute of Zoology, London before joining Roehampton in 2002. Read More…
Primates, penguins and the evolution of language
Analyses of human language and the behaviour of a range of non‐human animal species have provided evidence for a common pattern underlying diverse behavioural phenomena. This is a longstanding research interest of CRESIDA’s Stuart Semple, who has extensively studied this phenomenon in primates – including a recent study demonstrating that compression underpins chimpanzee gestural communication. Drawing Read More…
Anthropology of Life and Death: Exploring concepts of life and death through the lens of pregnancy loss
As part of our third year Anthropology of Life and Death module, students explore cross-cultural understandings of life and death. This week, our featured essay is by Jack Robson. Jack’s bio: I am a final year anthropology undergraduate student, having studied the majority of my degree part-time alongside work. When I discovered anthropology a number Read More…
Fiona Jordan on the cultural evolution of kinship diversity
Why do human societies differ in who they class as family? How do children learn about kinship? Why do some societies classify cousins with siblings, and other groups distinguish cousins through your mum or your dad? When and how do people talk about family? Although these questions have intrigued anthropologists for over a century, they remain Read More…
