UW Lecture to Assess Cooking's Influence on Human Evolution

April 23, 2010

The energy theory of cooking and its significance for human evolution will be the topic of Richard Wrangham's speech during the annual Mulloy Lecture Friday, April 30, at 3:10 p.m. in Room 129 of the University of Wyoming Classroom Building.

A reception to follow in the Anthropology building at Lewis and 12th streets. A celebration of the new Anthropology museum will be held at 5 p.m., in addition to the student awards ceremony.

Wrangham, from the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, proposes, "Humans are biologically adapted to the control of fire, because it enables the cooking of food, which leads to large amounts of energy. Evidence of compromised physiological performance among individuals on raw diets supports the hypothesis."

The Annual Mulloy Lecture is sponsored by the UW Anthropology Department in memory of the university's first professional anthropologist, Professor William Mulloy. He fostered what is usually called the "four field approach," integrating archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology into a unified program starting in 1948 at UW.

This tradition continues today and is highlighted by the displays at the new Anthropology Museum. The new museum has been open to the public for a number of weeks, although some displays are still under construction, we will have expanded tours and other activities during the reception.

For more information, contact the Department of Anthropology at (307) 766-5136 or anthropo@uwyo.edu.

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