The Paleoanthropology Chair, created in 2021, follows on from those offered by Jean-Jacques Hublin, since 2014, as part of a guest chair and then an international chair at the Collège de France. They take a resolutely bio-cultural perspective and examine all facets of Hominin evolution.

Species in this group, which appeared at least seven million years ago, initially adapted to environmental change and competition with other species through biological modifications affecting their size, anatomy, diet, locomotion and mode of reproduction. However, for at least the last two million years, the development of increasingly complex technical behaviours and modes of social organization in humans has opened up a completely new chapter in the history of life. In the ecological sense, this phase of human evolution is a " niche construction " that ultimately led our species to shape its environment on ever larger scales.

The Paleoanthropology research group, headed by Jean-Jacques Hublin and housed at the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en biologie, studies human evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, combining traditional field research with cutting-edge laboratory techniques, notably the analysis of organic molecules extracted from fossils. Thanks to our external collaborations, we combine anthropology and archaeology with other natural and social sciences to study how the biology, culture and ecology of Hominins interacted during their evolution. Our work covers topics as diverse as speciation and extinction, evolution of brain shape and neurocranium, patterns of bone growth and dental development, paleodemography and human mobility, evolution of technology and cultural transmission, adaptation, subsistence, landscape use and response to environmental change.