2025-2029
Project
COVAROS
COVAROS aims to test the hypothesis
of multiple forms of hominin bipedalism
using paleoanthropological, ontogenetic,
behavioural and biomechanical data.
Supervisor
Funding
COVAROS is funded by the Région Nouvelle Aquitaine (2024-2029).
Aims
COVAROS is an interdisciplinary project that combines paleoanthropology, primatology, and biomechanics. The project investigates the evolutionary processes that led hominins to adopt habitual bipedalism. Its objectives are to: i) identify the locomotor modes from which hominin bipedalism emerged, and ii) characterize the locomotor and manipulative capabilities of earliest hominins and ancient members of the genus Homo.
Outcomes
The project was launched through Zoé Nowicki’s PhD fellowship, which started in October 2024.
Consortium
COVAROS builds on former projects (ANR HOMTECH and LocHoSiM) and benefits from a collaborative network both international and local that associates PALEVOPRIM (University of Poitiers), the zoological parc of “La Vallée des Singes” (dir. J.-P. Guéry) and the paleontological projects in Chad (DUHNE: Document and Understand HominiN Evolution in Chad, Franck Guy) and Ethiopia (OGRE: Omo Group Research Expediction, Jean-Renaud Boisserie).
