Biological Anthropology HIRT Research Week

Hi everyone! Today is the start of my school's annual research week where all the independent research teams at Pingry, such as the Biological Anthropology one led by yours truly, are able to showcase all their work throughout the year! Thus, I wanted to share with you all what my group has been diligently working on for the past few months in this post in the hopes that it may encourage and inspire you to try to do some research of your own on anthropology, or any topic that you're passionate about, at your own school! Thank you to everyone who helped out and supported us, especially our advisor, Dr Haven!

Below I've included our Research Week highlight in the Pingry Community Research Journal:

Since September, the Biological Anthropology Humanities Independent Research Team has led their mitochondrial haplogroup experiment whilst enriching their primary knowledge of anthropology and human evolution by reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. The team collected mitochondrial haplogroup data from the National Library of Medicine database on individuals of varying backgrounds (+100 subsmissions), analyzing these individuals’ race, age, ethnicity, sex, country of origin, time period, and, most importantly, the variance in their genome sequences at the DNA base 14766. From this, they created specific graphs to determine the prevalence of the (very genetically similar) H & U mitochondrial haplogroups over time. Eventually, we aim to determine how these two mitochondrial haplogroups impact and humans’ abilities to survive during times of famine and be more vulnerable to diseases such as diabetes and obesity during times of plenty. In addition, the team aimed to determine how (whether it was a natural disaster or a drastic human event such as a time of famine like the Great Depression) these two haplogroups emerged (and whether they were originally one). During meetings, they organized time to discuss our readings and ask questions about who we are as humans, the variety of Homo species that were present on Earth in the past, how we have evolved (ex. the Cognitive & Agricultural Revolution), and ultimately how we compare to our ancestors and other hominins (such as the Neanderthals or Homo erectus).

Check out our poster!