The third of seven lectures in the How Did We Get Here? Human Origins, Evolution and Migrations series is set for 6:30pm on Wednesday, July 18, in Hitchcock Auditorium in Pioneer Hall on Central Oregon Community College’s Bend Campus. The series highlights cutting-edge anthropological research and discoveries.
The lecture, Kelp Forests, Estuaries, Mangroves, and Coral Reefs: The Ecology of Coastal Migrations by Anatomically Modern Humans, will be presented by Jon Erlandson, executive director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon.
Erlandson is a key figure among a group of anthropologists who have been building a growing case for early migrations of “first peoples” to the Americas via a coastal versus inland route at the end of the last ice age. Dubbed the “Kelp Highway Hypothesis,” this new view of how people moved into both North and South America is not necessarily an “either/or” scenario. It raises the possibility of multiple migrations to the Americas from the Asian continent, a view supported by evidence from linguistics and genetics.
Erlandson has been a professor of archaeology at the University of Oregon since 1990 and was appointed executive director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History in 2005. In addition to working at the museum and teaching classes in the department of anthropology, Erlandson has done field research in coastal California, Oregon, Alaska and Iceland. His interests focus on the development of maritime societies, human evolution and migrations and the peopling of the Americas. He has written and edited 16 books, published more than 200 scholarly articles and serves as coeditor of the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.
For information, call 541-383-7257.
Tickets are $10 general admission; $8 Sunriver Nature Center members; $3 students with ID. Advance sales from the Sunriver Nature Center: 541-593-4394 or 541-593-4442, or purchase at the door. There are limited free student tickets available by contacting kaylward@cocc.edu .
The series is sponsored by the Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program, the Sunriver Nature Center & Observatory, Safeco Insurance, Beecher and Carlson Insurance and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History with support from the student governments of COCC and OSU-Cascades.
How Did We Get Here: Human Origins, Evolution and Migrations Lecture Series
- “Kelp Forest, Esturaries, Mangroves and Coral Reefs: The Ecology of Coastal Misgration by Anatomically Modern Humans”
- By Jon Erlandson, professor of archaeology, UO
- 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 18, Hitchcock Auditorium, COCC Bend Campus
- Tickets available through the Sunriver Nature Center and at the door
- $10 general admission; $8 Sunriver Nature Center members; $3 students with ID.
- Advance sales from the Sunriver Nature Center: 541-593-4394 or 541-593-4442, or purchase at the door.
- Limited free student tickets are available by contacting kaylward@cocc.edu Info: 541-593-4394
