Adaptive radiations and dispersals in hominin evolutionary ecology

In the context of hominin evolution as a whole, the evolution of modern humans is just a small part of a much larger picture. There has also been increased interest in the later half of the 20th century in looking at human evolution as an adaptive process, involving climatic change, morphological specializations, and behavioral innovations, rather than as phylogenetic history alone. In particular, it is clear that the hominin evolutionary record as a whole shows a series of adaptive radiations. I shall look at the overall pattern of hominin evolution in terms of its constituent adaptive radiations, and what might be the behavioral and ecological elements that underlie each of these.