Indiana University Bloomington will join seven partners in Britain and the Netherlands to investigate early human settlements in Europe. The $1.81 million (1.1 million pound) Leverhulme Trust grant, spearheaded by the Natural History Museum in London, will be distributed to collaborators over four years. Paleontologist David Polly oversees IU Bloomington's participation in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project.

Indiana University Bloomington holds more than 560,000 audio and video recordings and film reels, many of which are historically significant, all of which are actively deteriorating. And the window of time to save these materials is closing fast.

The National Endowment for the Humanities' "We the People" project has awarded a group of Indiana University anthropologists $250,000 to transcribe, translate and publish the oral literature of the Assiniboine, a northern Plains Indian tribe with only about 50 living members still fluent in the tribal language of Nakota.

A new exhibit exploring humanity's cosmic, terrestrial, biological and cultural origins will be opening in Bloomington in fall 2010, thanks in part to a $149,000 grant recently awarded to Indiana University's Mathers Museum of World Cultures.The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the grant in support of "From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything."

Kubat Tabaldiev of Kyrgyzstan traveled six thousand miles from one of the most culturally diverse sites on earth to watch members of the Ojibwe tribe perform Native American dances in Michigan. He loved the experience so much that he couldn't wait to get back home and share what he learned.

The effects of Amazon deforestation where agriculture production has been ramped up through increased mechanization will receive further study by an Indiana University anthropology professor thanks to a $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Always thought-provoking, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in the coming months will entertain and challenge from the proscenium stage -- IU Auditorium -- while also meeting the Bloomington and Indiana University communities at our own level, so to speak, through grant-funded workshops, a visiting artist residency, symposia and panel discussions. The Washington, D.C.-based company performs Ferocious Beauty: Genome at IU Auditorium on Feb. 26.

Paula Dias, an Indiana University Bloomington junior, has been selected as a 2008 Beinecke Scholar. Dias is one of only 22 students nationwide to receive the $34,000 award, which supports graduate study in the arts, humanities or social sciences. She is the fifth IU student to receive the award.

Two international conferences taking place in April at Indiana University will apply scholarly and scientific analysis to questions of race in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. "Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean" will take place April 4-5, and "Rethinking Race in the Americas: Anthropology, Politics and Policy" will be April 17-18.

A six-year study of Amazonian small farmers and their responses to climate change shows the farmers are vulnerable to natural catastrophes and risky land use practices, say Indiana University Bloomington anthropologists Eduardo Brondizio and Emilio Moran. The researchers report in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (now accessible online) that an increase in climate anomalies like El Nino could ultimately drive many small farmers to ruin, forcing them into Brazilian cities that may be ill-equipped to employ, house and feed them.

The public is invited to explore pirate lore on Feb. 12 as Indiana University archeologists Charles Beeker and Geoffrey Conrad discuss their ongoing research in the Dominican Republic, including their work to study and protect what they believe is a shipwreck of notorious pirate Captain Kidd.

The Indiana University Bloomington Anthropology Department now offers a Ph.D. in the anthropology of food. "Food studies of all kinds are increasing in popularity," said Anthropology Department Chair Eduardo Brondizio. "IU offers the first program in the world leading to a Ph.D. in the social science of food."

An international symposium, "The Human Brain Evolving: Papers in Honor of Ralph L. Holloway," will take place April 27-28 in Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. Sponsored by the Stone Age Institute and IU, the event will feature presentations by major researchers on diverse aspects of brain evolution. The range of specialties includes paleoneurology, human paleontology, archaeology, primatology and cognitive science.

This edition of "Lecture Notes" features information about lectures and speakers on the Indiana University Bloomington campus from Nov. 6-20, including "Lunch with a Curator," a former chief of the CIA European Division and interesting discoveries from the Stone Age Institute.

As luck would have it, time ran short and the silt and mud ran deep. Despite these setbacks, Indiana University archaeologists are confident they are closer to discovering some of Christopher Columbus' lost ships -- and the answer to a 500-year-old mystery, "What was on those ships?"

A team of scientists conducting palaeoanthropological field research at Gona, in Ethiopia, have discovered a significantly complete cranium of a human ancestor estimated to be Middle Pleistocene in age.

Elizabeth Mooney has spent 40 years educating young people about sexuality and 20 years teaching the subject at IU South Bend. Her instruction goes far beyond essential information about body parts and sexually transmitted diseases. She is the recipient of IU's 2005 Part-time Teaching Award.

Charles Beeker's new laboratory isn't fancy, but it's functional. The 1,000-square-foot facility is abuzz with fans and archaeological activity. Sinks and tubs of water protect such shipwreck finds as 19th-century china from Hong Kong headed for the California gold fields, pig iron ballast, and hand-blown glass ale bottles from Germany. An occasional whiff of ocean water can be detected.

Subject to the approval of the Indiana University Board of Trustees, Jeanne Sept will be named the 13th dean of the faculties at IU Bloomington. Her appointment will begin on Aug. 1.

Indiana University Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology Anya Peterson Royce seeks to distinguish virtuosity from the phenomenon known as "artistry " through a cross-cultural examination of performance, art and artists. Those artists include renowned cellist and Distinguished Professor of music Janos Starker.

Archaeologists from Indiana University Bloomington are helping the government of the Dominican Republic open a second underwater museum featuring cannons, cannon balls, olive jar fragments and other items recovered from early 18th-century shipwrecks.

Indiana University presents three story ideas in conjunction with this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Feb. 12 to 16 in Seattle.

Five Indiana University Bloomington scientists have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fellowship in the association is considered a high honor among both American and foreign scientists.

A long-term study of human population and deforestation in the dwindling Amazon rainforest, conducted by anthropologist Emilio Moran and his colleagues at Indiana University Bloomington, is continuing with the support of a new $1.63 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.