The Stirling Lecture for 2016 will be given by Professor Lee Berger (University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) on Tuesday 8 November.

He will present two of his most recent discoveries, which are changing our understanding of the human evolutionary story and for which he was recently named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people.

As a professor of human evolution and National Geographic Explorer, Professor Berger has been searching South Africa and the Cradle of Humankind for over two decades for the fossil evidence of human evolution.

In the last ten years, he has discovered two of the most important new fossil human species: Australopithecus sediba (important for its combination of primitive and derived skeletal morphology) and Homo naledi (important for its combination of early human skeletal morphology yet with evidence for deliberate disposal of its dead).

Professor Berger will speak about the discovery and challenging excavation of these important fossils and also how they are changing our understanding of the human evolutionary story.

The lecture will take place at 18.30 in Keynes Lecture Theatre 1, Canterbury campus. It will be preceded by a reception for School of Anthropology and Conservaton staff and students in Swingland at 16.30 and a public reception with fossil cast exhibiton in Keynes foyer at 17.30.

If you would like to submit a question for Professor Berger, please email events@kent.ac.uk, or tweet your question using #UniKentEvents