Prof. Agustín Fuentes - Who are we? Belief, evolution, and our place in the world

Professor Agustín Fuentes, the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, delivers the Gifford Lecture entitled "Who are we? Belief, evolution, and our place in the world". It is the first lecture in the series 'Why We Believe: evolution, making meaning, and the development of human natures'.
This first lecture sets the stage for understanding the development of human natures and our capacity for belief by introducing the theme and narrative structure of the series. Then, by laying out our evolutionary history, we embark on an answer to “who we are” that is different today than it was even a decade ago. Starting with our shared primate heritage we situate humans among the other primates, uncovering the deep roots of our distinctive sociality and of our considerable creative and imaginative abilities. Then, via a highly condensed multi-million year journey, we survey the hominin lineage, the range of human-like relatives, illustrating a distinctive, and complicated, history of changing physiques and capacities facilitating the emergence of the human lineage.