Anthropology and Ancient DNA

Prof. Israel Hershkovitz

Paleopathology in medicine

Prof. Hershkovitz’ varied research touches many aspects of past population life . By providing detailed descriptions of bone modifications for many diseases, he made paleopathology an evidence -based medical discipline . His studies showed how evolution affect current people health (demonstrating that many spinal diseases are “trade off” for bipedalism), and how important diseases were in shaping past population physique (being the right hand of natural selection). He introduced the time dimension into medical thinking and showed how human behavior and climate affect population health in past times He further showed that the turning point in human population health was at the advent of agriculture, some 10 ,000 years ago . He documented the first modern humans migrating out of Africa (Misliya cave fossils 200 ,000 years ago ), and retrieved the mother population of all present people outside Africa (Manot cave fossils 55 ,000 years ago).

Prof. Hershkovitz is an emeritus Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, where he is head of the Dan David Laboratory for the Search and Study of Modern Humans. He is also Head of the Tassia and Dr. Joseph Meychan Chair for the History and Philosophy of Medicine. During his career he has been engaged in numerous excavations in Israel, responsible for some of the major fossils found in the country, and was a key person in establishing and organizing the fossil collection at the Faculty of Medicine.