Photo by Chris Meyer Kathy Schick , professor of anthropology at IUB, stands inside the CRAFT Stone Age Institute. Schick (left) and Toth look over trays full of bones excavated from a hyena den that will be studied at the CRAFT Stone Age Institute.

Human evolution experts from South Africa, Spain and throughout the U.S. will gather in Bloomington next week for the inaugural Missing Links Conference of the IU Center for Research in the Anthropological Foundations of Technology (CRAFT).

Two events are open to the public. On Wednesday (April 28), at 4:30 p.m., paleoanthropologist Charles Kimberlin Brain, former curator of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa, will begin the conference by delivering the CRAFT Distinguished Lecture on Human Origins, "Driving Forces behind the Evolution of Human Technology," in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. On Saturday, May 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Rawles Hall 100, the 15 invited speakers will give 15-minute talks on an array of contentious subjects related to humans' biological and technological evolution. Rawles is located just north of Third Street between South Park and Woodlawn avenues. (See schedule at end of story.)

"The purpose of this conference is to summarize major ideas and issues in human origins research," said CRAFT co-director Kathy Schick. "Presenters are leading, international experts in the field. The conference also will celebrate the life and career of one of those experts -- C.K. 'Bob' Brain."

The scientists also will make use of CRAFT's new Stone Age Institute for private sessions. CRAFT is co-directed by Schick and her husband, Nicholas Toth.

Participants at the conference are Brain; IUB anthropologists Schick, Toth and Travis Pickering; Transvaal Museum scientist Francis Thackeray; University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa) archaeologist Kathleen Kuman and anatomist Ronald Clarke; Complutense University (Madrid, Spain) archaeologist Manuel Dominquez-Rodrigo; University of Nevada, Reno, anthropologist Gary Haynes; Smithsonian Institution paleoecologist Kay Behrensmeyer and paleoanthropologist Richard Potts; Rutgers University anthropologist Robert Blumenschine; University of Wisconsin anthropologist Henry Bunn; Arizona State University anthropologist Curtis Marean; University of Minnesota anthropologist Martha Tappen; and University of California at Berkeley human evolutionary biologist Tim White.

The conference is sponsored by the New York City-based Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Inc., the Stone Age Institute, the CRAFT Research Center, IU's Office of the Vice President for Research, IU's Office of International Programs, the College of Arts and Sciences (IUB) and the Office of the Chancellor (IUB).

The schedule of speakers and topics for the public symposium May 1:

• 10 a.m. Opening remarks.

• 10:15 a.m. Travis Pickering, "The Career and Life of Bob Brain: Example, Inspiration and Continued Work at Swarkrans Cave"

• 10:30 a.m. Bob Brain, "Hunters or Hunted? Raymond Dart's Contribution to Paleoanthropology"

• 10:45 a.m. Francis Thackeray, "Hominids in the Sterkfontein Valley, South Africa"

• 11:00 a.m. Ron Clarke, "The 4-Million-Year-Old Sterkfontein Cave Australopithecus Skeleton"

• 11:15 a.m. Kathleen Kuman, "Excursions into the Early Archaeology of Southern Africa"

• 11:30 a.m. Gary Haynes, "Elephants in the Forest with a Desert Heart"

• 11:45 a.m. Questions for all of morning participants

• 2 p.m. Kay Behrensmeyer, "The Bones of Amboseli Park, Kenya: Studying the Present to Understand the Past"

• 2:15 p.m. Robert Blumenschine, "Recent Investigations at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania"

• 2:30 p.m. Henry Bunn, "The Role of Meat in the Foraging of Early Homo"

• 2:45 p.m. Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo, "A New Research Project on Human Evolution at Lake Eyasi, Tanzania"

• 3 p.m. Curtis Marean, "The Evolution of Behavioral Modernity: New Evidence for an African Origin"

• 3:15 p.m. Martha Tappen, "New Discoveries from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia"

• 3:30 p.m. Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick, "The Dawn of Human Technology: Do it Like an Ape-Man"

• 3:45 p.m. Tim White, "Tracking Technology through the Middle Awash, Ethiopia"

• 4 p.m. Questions from the public, followed by a reception in the Rawles Hall lobby.

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