L
ehman College has a proven record of working to improve the Bronx. However, its professors and students are looking far beyond New York and making discoveries that change the way we look at the world. Just three years after earning her doctorate in anthropology, Professor Cameron McNeil redefined the way the scientific world explained the downfall of ancient Maya civilizations. She argued that large-scale deforestation was not the cause of the collapse of the Maya city of Copan in Honduras —as many had believed—and in 2010 published her findings. Working with two students in Honduras, McNeil, who has a National Science Foundation grant for research, is investigating how the ancient Maya lived during Late Classic and Protoclassic periods in the eastern section of the Copan Valley.
This research will uncover significant data that can be used to analyze how humans impacted their environment—positively and negatively—in once-thriving ancient civilizations. Likewise, in 2014, an international team of researchers, co-led by Professor William Harcourt-Smith, another member of the College’s Anthropology department, discovered the remains of an ancient forest on Rusinga Island, Lake Victoria, Kenya. Within this discovery was the fossil of a single Proconsul specimen, providing evidence of the habitat of the first ape. Their findings, which will help scientists understand the connection between ancient habitats and the emergence of ape lineages (including that of humans), were published in the February 2014 issue of Nature Communications. Harcourt-Smith, who also works as a
research scientist at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, is currently studying the origins of bipedalism, or upright walking, aided by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the Leakey Foundation. It was Harcourt-Smith that led the team of researchers who analyzed the foot bones of Homo naledi, the newly discovered human species that made global news in September 2015; thanks to his work, it was concluded that Homo naledi could walk upright and for long distances. Wherever his research takes him, he notes that his Lehman College students have contributed mightily to his work. Said Harcourt-Smith: “My students have played a very important role, collecting and analyzing data that has led to successful publication of the results.”
From left: Dr. Harcourt-Smith; Lehman undergraduate Aileen Fernandez teaching students from the National Autonomous University of Honduras how to analyze lithics from ancient Maya ruins; undergraduate Liam Riley extracting a sample.
discovery@Lehman College
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