Earlier this month, LSU’s Geography and Anthropology Department announced Professor Juliet K. Brophy attended a meeting held by the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution to present her research.
The ESHE held its 14th annual meeting in Zagreb, Croatia from Sept. 11th to 15th, and Brophy attended to share her research on non-adult human ancestors who belonged to the Rising Star cave system in South Africa.
The conference keynote speaker was Svante Pääbo, the first anthropologist to win a Nobel Prize. Pääbo received the award for his research on human evolution and the genomes of extinct hominins, which revealed Neanderthals interbred with humans.
Both Brophy and Pääbo are biological anthropologists, meaning they focus on the physical and biological remains of humans and their ancestors. Brophy explained how exciting it was that Pääbo was at the meeting and that he won the Nobel Prize.
“First [anthropologist] Nobel Laureate, a biological anthropologist,” Brophy said, “and that’s a big deal for us.”
While in Croatia, Brophy visited a Neanderthal site in Krapina to study and analyze fossil specimens. The Neanderthals at the site had what she called “shoveled teeth,” or incisors that are more flat and forward, making the shape of the curvy part of a shovel. She said this was something she had never seen before. These Neanderthals lived during the ice age, so their diet mainly consisted of meats.
Brophy spends time researching in South Africa, where she focuses on non-adults and the Rising Star cave system, which has many juvenile remnants. Brophy referenced a study talking about non-adult Homo Erectus teeth where the researchers only had teeth to go off of, while Brophy had multiple sets of teeth to look at.
New discoveries continue to be made in the field of anthropology. An example is the Homo naledi, a Hominin species assumed to have existed during the Pleistocene that was found in the Rising Star cave system in 2015. When they were found, their skeletons were different enough from other species to become a whole new distinction.
“We’re still trying to work out what Homo Naledi is,” Brophy said. “It’s pretty unique from its morphology from head to toe. Nothing we would have predicted a specimen would look like.”
Brophy and the other researchers at the Rising Star cave system are focused on understanding these species.
Brophy’s father used to take her on archaeological digs occasionally, but what reeled her into biological anthropology was falling in love with a fossil. She said she would be introduced to anthropological ideas and follow them where they took her.
“I found I had to do that homework last because I kept rabbit-holing into more research,” Brophy said.
In her current research, Brophy focuses on how a change in environment can affect a population. She has researched the changes in bovine teeth throughout time, and is using those results to help researchers understand the environment in which Homonins lived.
Brophy created a database with records and photos cataloging different bovine teeth, allowing others to identify bovine teeth they may encounter.
The trips to Croatia and South Africa are par for the course when it comes to the research Brophy does, but she loves them and compares herself to a giddy kid every time she gets off a plane to conduct research.
