The 2025 Conference

January 29-31, 2025, at the Musée de l’Homme, Paris

Theme 1: Hierarchy and power in human and non-human primates

Guest Speaker: Dr. Elise Huchard, Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier, FR

Hierarchies are the structured and codified expression of more or less visible inequalities within societies. They refer to the organization of individuals subject to relations of subordination. The power exercised by some, and endured or accepted by others, is the expression of various factors: intrinsic capacities (size, physical strength), individual identity (age, sex), social identity (lineage, clan), and social status/role (technological, economic, political in the broad sense).

Identifying hierarchical contexts in past societies and tracing their evolution and diversity makes it possible, on the one hand, to evaluate their consequences (funerary treatment, diet, health, activity) and, on the other, to test their causes: socio-cultural, ecological, or even biological determinants of power relations, particularly between the sexes. In this perspective, primatological data provide information on the evolutionary factors of sex-linked social traits in non-human primates, such as coercive behaviors (dominance of one sex over the other), for example.

How can we recognize the attributes of power within human or non-human social structures, past or present? What are the practices, productions, or aspirations specific to “dominants” or “elites”? What factors contribute to the definition of their rank in society and its perpetuation at the level of the social group, or even beyond? The papers proposed in this theme will focus, from the perspective of the archaeo-anthropologist or primatologist, on the concepts of hierarchy and power, on relations of dominance between individuals, particularly between the sexes, their origins, their mechanisms of expression, and their consequences.

This theme is intended to be inclusive in terms of study models, approaches, methods, and periods, in the sense that it concerns all primates, human and non-human, and all social organizations and structures, past or present.

Keywords: Hierarchy, dominance, social structures, social status, gender.

Scientific Committee: Yann Ardagna, Christophe Darmangeat, Julie Duboscq, Cécile Garcia, Aline Thomas, Sébastien Villotte

Theme 2: Asia, a Crossroads

Guest Speaker: Dr. Janet Kelso, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, DE

From the very first migrations out of Africa in the Lower Pleistocene to the “New Silk Roads,” the Asian continent has been a crossroads between Africa, the Americas, Oceania, and Europe, from which most regions of the world were populated.

Over time, different human populations have occupied this space. As the first region settled by the genus Homo outside of Africa, Asia is also distinguished by the diversity of human species that coexisted there during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene: H. neanderthalensis, H. longi, H. luzonensis, H. floresiensis, Denisovans, and H. sapiens. During pre-, proto-, and historical periods, Asia was home to a wide variety of human populations and archaeological cultures. In particular, it was the site of two independent phenomena of Neolithization that spread across the continent. Later, population expansions, particularly of steppe populations toward East and South Asia, brought these different chrono-cultural groups into contact and established a great population and cultural diversity that still exists today.

Finally, Asia is a region with very varied climates and geographical conditions, ranging from glacial to tropical climates, and from the highest mountains in the world to vast deserts. Humans have been found in all of these regions, thus raising the question of the biological and/or cultural adaptation mechanisms to these varied environments.

This session aims to bring together work focusing on Asia as a crossroads at different temporal scales, ranging from settlement to the meeting of populations, and their genetic or non-genetic adaptations.

Keywords: Asia, paleoanthropology, population genetics, Neolithic, adaptation, admixture.

Scientific Committee: Julio Bendezu-Sarmento, Céline Bon, Bérénice Chamel, Florent Détroit, Nina Marchi, Olivia Munoz

Theme 3: Current Research

This theme will bring together recent findings in the discipline, whether they be new discoveries or methodological advances.

Scientific Committee: Camille de Becdelièvre, Christine Couture, Sacha Kacki, Aurélien Mounier, Floriane Rémy