Ivor Janković

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Coll. Antropol. 32 (2008) 2: 655–656News33rd SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY– »Current Issues in Paleoanthropology: FromBones to DNA«Schools of biological anthropology organized by theCroatian Anthropological Society have a long tradition,spanning for more than 30 years. The first School of Bio-logical Anthropology was held in 1975 in Zagreb, andsince then it has been a yearly event, even at the hardesttimes in Croatian history, during the war times. Distin-guished colleagues and scholars from all over the worldparticipated in the schools, thus contributing not only toour mutual scientific cooperation, but also giving a first--hand experience and up-to-date information and knowl-edge to our students, many of which are now themselveswell known scientists in their fields. The scientific collab-oration of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An-thropology (Leipzig) and Croatian Academy of Sciencesand Arts in which members of the Institute for Anthro-pological research are also involved resulted in the invi-tation to scientists from Leipzig to come and participatein this year’s School.The 33rd School of Biological Anthropology was heldunder the high auspices of Professor Dragan Primorac,Minister of Science, Education and Sports of the Repub-lic of Croatia and under the direction of academicianPavao Rudan (Institute for Anthropological Research,Zagreb, Croatia) and academician Svante Pääbo (MaxPlanck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig,Germany). The organizers of the School were the Cro-atian Anthropological Society and the Institute for An-thropological Research, Zagreb.The lectures were held at the premises of the Cro-atian Medical Council in Zagreb. After the official open-ing ceremony and speech by Professor Pavao Rudan, theDragutin Gorjanovi} Kramberger awards of the CroatianAnthropological Society were awarded to ProfessorSvante Pääbo, and to Vlasta Krklec, the director of theMuseum of Evolution in Krapina, Croatia whose newbuilding is expected to be opened by the end of the year.After the opening ceremony, Professor Svante Pääbogave a talk under the title »The Neandertal genome«thus providing a framework of this year’s school. He em-phasized the importance of our collaborative work onVindija hominin remains from which the first successfulextraction of Neandertal nuclear sequence was publishedlast year, and the ongoing work that will soon be pub-lished. Professor Pääbo, as a member of the first teamthat successfully extracted mitochondrial DNA from theoriginal Neander Valley specimen (Feldhofer 1) in 1997has a first-hand knowledge of the issues in ancient DNAresearch, which he shared with our students in his lec-ture. Thus he spoke on the history and methodology andproblems with ancient DNA research.After the short break, three lectures were given. Pro-fessor Jean Jacques Hublin gave a talk entitled »Nean-dertal origin and evolution« in which he provided a briefoverview of Neandertal anatomical evolution in its geo-logical and environmental setting and discussed the pro-posed models of the extinction of this prehistoric popula-tion. Of special interest were the results of analyses doneby the researchers of the Max Planck Institute on thedental structure and growth trajectories of Neandertalsand anatomically modern humans.Moving away from taxonomic issues, Professor Mi-chael Richards’ talk on the »Isotope evidence of Nean-dertal diet and mobility« provided further insight intohow far we have come in our understanding of pastevents. Through the analysis of stable isotopes it is notonly possible to see dietary preferences of a prehistoricgroup, but sometimes it is possible to follow a mobilitypattern of a single individual that has lived over 40 000years ago. Dr. Richards has been involved in analyses ofCroatian Neandertals for a number of years and this issurely going to result in a number of interesting analysesin the future.The lecture entitled »Genes, Culture and HumanEvolution« by one of the original authors of the famed1987 mitochondrial study (the so-called »African Eve«)that proposed the African origin for anatomically mod-ern humans based on molecular research (several au-thors proposed this model based on anatomical evidenceprior to this study). However, Professor Stoneking’s lec-ture concentrated on the ongoing evolution of humans (afact that humans continue to evolve since the establish-ment of our biological species, Homo sapiens sapiens is655often neglected). Through the examples such as well--known lactose intolerance/tolerance patterns, or socialpatterns such as matrilocal/patrilocal mate exchange theinteraction of culture and genetics becomes a valuableaddition to our understanding of the living humans, aswell as past populations.The final lecture of this year’s School of Biological An-thropology was given by Professor Svante Pääbo. As itstitle »Future perspective« suggested, Professor Pääbogave us a brief prospect of the future work and the ongo-ing analyses by our joint Croatian-German based teams.It is within a year that we can expect further insight intothe Neandertal genomics, and the fact that our ownVindija fossils will have a crucial role in it makes us veryproud.Ivor Jankovi}Institute for Antropology Research, Zagreb, CroatiaNews, Coll. Antropol. 32 (2008) 2: 673–674656

33rd SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY – »Current Issues in Paleoanthropology: From Bones to DNA«

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