Syllabus: Ecology and Paleoecology

Fall 2024
By Kayt Sukel

Many in the greater Rice community are familiar with the popular summer Tropical Field Biology course in Belize led by bioscientist Scott Solomon. So perhaps it’s no surprise that when Solomon was first introduced to archaeologist Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, whose work centers on the paleoanthropology of human origins, they quickly started discussing the creation of a summer intensive field course in Tanzania. The goal was to combine modern ecology with paleoanthropology — to give students a sense of how the changing environment not only affects African wildlife but also the evolution of hominins, as well as today’s humans.

“This is a very hands-on course,” said Domínguez-Rodrigo. “The idea is to draw lessons from the past to understand the present — to bring together multiple disciplines across chemistry, physics, ecology, biology and sociology to put our evolutionary trajectory in perspective.”

Students spent the first few weeks preparing for their African lessons by consuming literature about the local wildlife, ecology, climate change and human evolution. Then the group embarked on a two-week field course to northern Tanzania, including UNESCO World Heritage sites like Ngorongoro Crater, to see lions, elephants, giraffes and more — and to participate in an active dig at Olduvai Gorge.

The idea is to draw lessons from the past to understand the present — to bring together multiple disciplines across chemistry, physics, ecology, biology and sociology to put our evolutionary trajectory in perspective. 

“In the course of a day, I would wake up in my tent on the eastern Serengeti plains to a gorgeous sunrise, get into a Land Cruiser and pass by elephants and giraffes, and then head to the excavation site where I’d use a 1.5-million-year-old hominin battering stone to help excavate bones out of the ground,” said McKenna Castleberry ’24. 

Kamden O’Connor ’27 said having this kind of direct field experience helped bring his previous coursework in ecology and human evolution to life. “It was a little surreal sometimes, but it made me want to engage more and delve deeper into my studies.” 

That sentiment, said Domínguez-Rodrigo, is exactly the point. “Being in the field is about putting 100% of what the students learned into practice and helping them draw connections to understand how the past informs not only our present but our future. It was wonderful to see the students making those kinds of connections every day.”  

Scott Solomon is a teaching professor in biosciences at the Wiess School of Natural Sciences. Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo is a visiting professor in anthropology at the School of Social Sciences.