Casts on the Table: A Hominin Anatomy Seminar and Dinner

Guests arrive at a university study room where cast trays are already set out under lamps, one seat and one tray each. The session opens with the anatomy of upright walking, worked through on a pelvis, a femur and a foot, then set beside chimpanzee and modern human casts so the differences can be found by hand rather than described. Field notebooks, site maps and photographs follow, tracing how a fragment on a slope becomes a described specimen, from survey and sieving through recording and dating. The group then moves to a private dining room upstairs for a three-course dinner, where questions continue on what a field season costs in time, money and patience. Each guest leaves with a signed book and a comparative anatomy handout.