About

ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change is breaking down disciplinary borders and raising the bar for intellectual fusion with an exciting new research initiative. Titled Late Lessons from Early History, the program is dedicated to exploring our past, present and future through the work of transdisciplinary teams focused on specific aspects of the human experience.

The initiative challenges scholars of the past (e.g., paleoanthropologists and archaeologists) and those studying the present (e.g., cultural anthropologists and political scientists) to blend perspectives—not in search of new data but to investigate existing knowledge from fresh angles, thereby deepening the understanding of human evolutionary processes and their outgrowths. A major goal is to better prepare for the future by learning from the past and present.  

Late Lessons from Early History builds on the School of Human Evolution and Social Change’s existing reputation for excellence and innovation in multidisciplinary research. In striving to answer such questions as “How has the genetic makeup of the human species evolved?” “How will increased globalization affect our health?” or “How do institutions evolve over time, and how do they affect human-environment relationships?” the projects funded by the initiative promise to have far-reaching implications. More…

Lecture Series

The Late Lessons from Early History program sponsors a lecture series that exemplifies the intellectual fusion movement. Featuring some of the world's most respected researchers in a diversity of fields, the Late Lessons from Early History speaker series addresses the human condition from historical, ecological, political and a variety of other disciplinary vantage points. Upcoming lectures...

Student Opportunities

 Graduate Hourly Research Position

Projects

• Change is Hard: The Challenges of Path Dependence

• Cooperation, Social Networks and Global Health

• Disruptions as a Cause and Consequence of Migration in Human History

• Explaining a Confluence of Diversity and Complexity: Paleoanthropological and Paleogenetic Investigations of Fynbos, Marine Ecosystems and Human Origins

• Geoinformatics-based Data Integration for Study of the Pliocene Fossil-bearing Strata of the Hadar Basin (Afar, Ethiopia)

• People, Primates and Pathogens: The Evolution of a Global Emergency and the Future of Conservation and Public Health Efforts

• The South Phoenix Collaborative: Leveraging Culture & History to Support Healthy, Resilient and Just Communities

• Urban Organization through the Ages: Neighborhoods, Open Spaces and Urban Life