Henry Stopes Memorial Lecture next Friday 5th February at the Geological Society Lecture Theatre at 6.00 pm with tea at 5.30 pm.

On “Breaking the Time barrier of human antiquity”

Clive Gamble is a professor in the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway and one of the world's leading authorities on early stone age (Palaeolithic) archaeology and the origins of human society. He has undertaken research in many parts of the world to answer the question; when and why did we become the only human species to achieve a global distribution? His work combines elements as diverse as archaeology, anthropology, high-precision dating techniques, climate change and genetics to investigate human evolution and dispersals. He has published widely, including five major books charting elements of distant human prehistory such as the extinction of the Neanderthals, the origins of human identity and global colonisation, as well as fronting the TV series "Where Do We Come From". His award of the Henry Stopes medal in 2009 coincided with the 150th anniversary of the occasion when Sir Joseph Prestwich and Sir John Evans established humanity’s geological antiquity in a gravel pit in northern France, and Clive's exciting rediscovery, in the collections of the Natural History Museum, of the very artefact on which they based their monumental findings.