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0:00
I'm Professor Evelyne Heyer. I work
in the field of Genetic Anthropology.
That means that I try to understand
the behavior and the diversity
of humans using genetic data.
I work at the National History Museum
in Paris. My lecture will be about
the cross-talk between cultural
and genetic evolution in humans.
0:28
As you all know, there are several
evolutionary forces that work
for all living animals or plants.
You have forces called the genomic forces,
like mutation, recombination.
You have also natural selection,
and you have also demographic
forces like migration and drift.
All these forces interact in the genetic
diversity, but what interests us
is that in humans, not only in humans but extremely important in humans,
you have social behavior and lifestyle,
and the idea is to try to understand
how social behavior and lifestyle have
also an impact on the genetic diversity
and on the evolution of our species.
Social behavior and lifestyle
can impact genetic diversity
through the demographic process
like migration and drift and also
through the selection process.
1:37
For example, in neutral diversity
you have several controlled traits
that can have an impact:
language, social organization,
and cultural transmission
of reproductive success.
On the non-neutral diversity through
selection, you have all what is called
the bio-cultural evolution, that is
now called the Niche Theory,
like the adaptation to pathogens and to diet.
During my lecture, I will focus on
the impact on neutral diversity
on social organization and then on cultural transmission of reproductive success.
So let's look about social organization.
