Hello everyone, I'm Ryan Governale, a senior at BASIS Scottsdale participating in a school-sponsored internship programme called a Senior Research Project (SRP), which gives seniors an opportunity to work in a field of interest (frequently research-based interest, but not always) in the last trimester of the year.
My project will focus on two species, many fossil casts, and a lot of prior research. With the help of my on-site mentor, Dr William Kimbel, and my school faculty adviser, Dr Matt Jette, I hope to, as the title says, analyse and further define the taxonomic relationship between extant early Homo finds in East Africa. By current consensus, that means looking at two species and their assigned fossil specimens: H. habilis and H. rudolfensis. Specifically, I'll be looking at the maxillae and crania of these species, because prior research has attempted to establish, using these fossils in particular, that H. habilis and H. rudolfensis are actually the same species with considerable variation; my goal is to evaluate whether that claim holds water, so to say. I'm not a betting man, but as you can see from the title, I'm putting my money on scepticism for now.
I hope this blog will be of use to you, the readers, and I hope my research will prove to be interesting and useful as the project moves forward.
