Exploring the Evolution of Our Ancestors: On the Human Track

This is a captivating evolutionary narrative of the human body, exploring the pivotal traits that make humans unique as a species. It provides a better understanding of why we look the way we do, through an evolutionary morphological lens, by delving into the functional explanations for the unique characteristics of us and our ancestors and the evolutionary pathways that shaped them. It integrates changes in anatomy with functional shifts, but also with underlying genetic and environmental transformations that drove our evolution. The main body of the book focuses around four fundamental themes that have evolutionarily sculpted us into who we are today, ever since the shared origin with the chimpanzee: diet, brain, locomotion and skin. This book not only promises to enrich our understanding of human evolution but also challenges us to reconsider what it means to be human in light of our ancient lineage and ongoing evolutionary journey. It also:

• Provides a complete overview of the major events of human evolution;
• Helps readers understand why our body has been shaped the way it is;
• Integrates genes, anatomy, function, behavior and ecology, creating a more complete picture, written in an accessible text while incorporating many facts and figures building upon both historic and recent literature;
• Offers an up-to-date view of how anthropologists currently see our evolution;
• Focuses on four fundamental changes in the brain, diet, skin and locomotion;
• Explains some aspects of what humans are experiencing today (e.g., why some people are lactose intolerant).

Dominique Adriaens obtained a PhD in Biology with research that focused on the functional morphology of the feeding apparatus in an African catfish species. His research focused on African catfish taxonomy and evolutionary morphology. He was appointed as an assistant professor in the Biology Department, advancing to full Professor in 2012 and Senior Full Professor in 2020. Adriaens is became the Director of the Museum of Zoology in the Faculty of Sciences and took over the leadership of the ’Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates’ research group.
His research focuses on the evolution of vertebrates, aiming to answer why animals look the way they do by examining how vertebrates have become adapted based on the anatomy of muscles and skeletal systems. His studies have been wide-ranging and include land-feeding catfish, jaw adaptations in Darwin’s finches, specializations in African cichlids, tunnel-digging adaptations in African mole-rats, and the evolution of the prehensile tail in seahorses.
Adriaens and his lab have published over 180 articles in international journals. He has supervised more than 20 Ph.D. students and presented at 34 international conferences and universities and participated in numerous other conferences.
He is a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, oversees the Biology teacher training program and the faculty’s Excellence Program in Sciences, chaired the Biology program, and serves as the Director of Studies for the Faculty of Sciences.
Adriaens has diverse teaching experience including a course on the importance of primate ancestors and human evolution.