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Middle Stone Age NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates

Rob Scott, Ph.D.

Biological Anthropologist
Paleoecology and Hominin Diet Lab
Center for Human Evolutionary Studies
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
rscott.anthro@gmail.com

The research focus in my lab is on understanding the diets of our various hominin and hominid ancestors and close relatives. How did foods and ecology create selection pressures and constraints in human evolution? In practice, this means a wide range of work from experimental to comparative. We have done everything from experiments using an in vitro model of human digestion to HRXCT of the internal architecture of jaw bones. In the Middle Stone Age of Ethiopia, research might include scanning cut-marked or tooth-marked bone and distinguishing cut-marks from tooth-marks or analyzing the species and skeletal parts present at a locality to answer questions about subsistence. We could even investigate use-wear on stone tools.
Thus, work could include identification and cataloging collections, scanning and imaging or even some mathematical modeling. Anthropology and archaeology have long borrowed from other disciplines and curious undergraduate researchers from majors as diverse as but not limited to Math, Computer Science, Biology, Archaeology, and Anthropology all may have something to contribute.

Publications

2012. Scott, R.S., P.S. Ungar, & M.F. Teaford. Dental microwear textures and anthropoid diets. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 147 (4): 551-579. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22007

2012. Kaya, T., S. Mayda, D.S. Kostopoulos, M.C. Alcicek, G. Merceron, A. Tan, S. Karakutuk, A.K. Giesler, & R.S. Scott. Şerefköy-2, a new late Miocene mammalian locality from the Yatağan Formation, Muğla, SW Turkey. Comptes Rendus Palevol 11 (1): 5-12. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2011.09.001

2012. Pante, M.C., R.J. Blumenschine, S.D. Capaldo, & R.S. Scott. Validation of bone surface modification models for inferring fossil hominin and carnivore feeding interactions, with reapplication to FLK 22, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution 63 (2): 395-407.

2010. Ungar, P.S., R.S. Scott, F.E. Grine, & M.F. Teaford. Molar microwear textures and the diets of Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2010 365 (1556): 3345-3354. doi:10.1073/pnas.1104627108

2009. Ungar, P.S. & R.S. Scott. Dental evidence for diets of early Homo. In: The First Humans (Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology) (F.E. Grine, J.G. Fleagle, & R.E. Leakey, editors). Springer: pp. 121-134. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9980-9_11

2006. Scott, R.S., P.S. Ungar, T.S. Bergstrom, C.A. Brown, B.E. Childs, M.F. Teaford & A. Walker. Dental microwear texture analysis: technical considerations. Journal of Human Evolution 51: 339-349.

2005. Scott, R.S., P.S. Ungar, T.S. Bergstrom, C.A. Brown, F.E. Grine, M.F. Teaford, & A. Walker. Dental microwear texture analysis shows within-species diet variability in fossil hominins. Nature 436 (7051): 693-695. doi:10.1038/nature03822

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Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Leakey Foundation.