preface of human evolution
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Understanding the origins of humanity has long been one of our foremost intellectual pursuits, and one that greatly interests the general public as evidenced by museum attendance and by numerous media productions and general interest publications. Progress toward an improved understanding of our heritage is a continuing challenge for the scientific community, requiring advances in a range of disciplines that include archaeology, anthropology, geology, biology, oceanography, and genetics, and particularly research advances in areas where two or more of these fields intersect. One of the key questions in this interdisciplinary quest is how the environment, and specifically climate, shaped the evolution of our species and that of our close relatives.
Some of the most critical world issues today also bear on human evolution, in the sense that how we got here is relevant to where we are going as a species. For example, global warming, population growth with its attendant demands on limited resources, pandemic threats of virulent diseases, and availability of weapons that can cause massive damage and render parts of the globe uninhabitable, all demand more rational policy decisions that take into account the long evolutionary process that brought humanity to world dominance. Perhaps a greater appreciation of what the people of the world have in common, rather than their differences, might encourage more cooperation.
Although recent advances in knowledge of human evolution have been substantial, they really have only laid the groundwork for future achievements. New methodologies for establishing the ages of specimens and analyzing them with sophisticated instrumentation, and for acquiring information about past environments through drilling on land and in lakes and the ocean, set the stage for further discoveries. Accelerated research not only offers potential for highly significant advances, there is also an urgency in moving ahead due not only to the global and regional threats mentioned above, but also to the loss of potential specimen sites as a result of development and even vandalism.