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Academy Centenary Research Project | Academy Research Projects

Where a web page does not yet exist for a project, links may instead point to a related publication from the British Academy catalogue (where appropriate).

Academy Centenary Research Project

After a rigorous process intended to identify major new and innovative strands of long term research in the humanities and social sciences, which will make a significant impact on the development of scholarship in the first part of the twenty-first century, the Academy adopted the following project in 2003 as an Academy Centenary Research Project.

From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain

The project will bring together archaeologists, evolutionary psychologists, social anthropologists, sociologists and linguists to reconstruct our ancestors' social lives and behaviour from the archaeological evidence of bones and tools. New models developed for understanding primate behaviour can now be applied to the hard evidence of our ancestors to help us understand how our brains have enlarged three-fold since early hominid Lucy, four million years ago.

Project Director: Professor R I M Dunbar, FBA
Project Director: Professor C S Gamble, FBA
Project Director: Professor J A J Gowlett
contact: robin.dunbar@anthro.ox.ac.uk
website: http://www.liv.ac.uk/lucy2009/

Academy Research Projects

The Academy grants the title of Academy Research Project to about 40 long-term enterprises, each organised and run by its own Project Committee. These projects aim to make available fundamental research tools of benefit to a wide range of scholars. The following projects are currently supported through this scheme, which offers recognition and limited funding:

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