After studying archaeology and biological anthropology, I defended my thesis on the contribution of imaging techniques to the identification and characterization of artificial skull modification practices in the populations of Central-Western Mesoamerica, under the supervision of Priscilla Bayle and Grégory Pereira. During this lecture, I developed an interest in the shape of the human skull in relation to brain development. This led to a post-doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, where I was given the opportunity to investigate the interactions between cranial vault thickness and brain shape in human fossils, as well as in modern great apes.
My post-doctoral work at the Collège de France (in Prof. Hublin's Paleoanthropology department) has enabled me to investigate the determinants of morphological variation in the cranium within the human lineage. In particular, I focus on the evolutionary dimension of cerebral metabolism, which I study using imaging techniques. My work involves reconstructing the morphology of the craniums of human fossils in order to assess the evolution of their cerebral anatomy. In this context, quantifying their cerebral energy requirements represents a major challenge, as it offers an opportunity to understand the very nature of the mechanisms that contributed to the emergence of the cognitively complex human brain, and more broadly to phenotypic evolution as a whole within the human lineage.
Sélim Natahi is the winner of the Fondation Hugot du Collège de France 2023 prize.
