Darwin Day Lecture - Growing up Human with Dr Brenna Hassett

Event information

Tracking deep into our evolutionary history, anthropological science has begun to unravel one particular feature that sets us apart from the many, many animals that came before us – our uniquely long childhoods. In the Darwin Day lecture Brenna Hassett will look at how we have diverged from our ancestral roots to stay 'forever young' – or at least what seems like forever – and how the evolution of childhood is a critical part of the human story.

Using observations of our closest primate relatives, the tiny relics of childhood that come to us from the archaeological record, and the bones and teeth of our ancestors, science has started to unravel the evolution of our childhood right down the fossil record. In our species, investment doesn’t stop at birth, and we can make comparisons with other animals on every aspect of our care and feeding – from the chemical composition of our milk, to our fondness for formal education from ancient times onwards. Beginning with a look at the ways animals invest in their offspring, Brenna will look at the many steps of making a baby, from pair-bonding to hidden ovulation, points where our species has repeatedly stepped off the standard primate path. From the mystery of monogamy to the minefield of modern parenting advice, Brenna Hassett reveals how differences between humans and our closest cousins lead to our messy mating systems, dangerous pregnancies, and difficult births, and what these tell us about the kind of babies we are trying to build. In the Darwin Day Lecture 2025, Brenna Hassett will pull this all together, in order to understand just why we evolved our weird and wonderful childhoods.

Reviews for Growing Up Human:

Superb and often hilarious. Growing Up Human is what happens when science meets an unusually entertaining and uninhibited writer...should be appreciated by anyone pregnant, planning to be pregnant, or who has ever had a child or been one. ― Wall Street Journal

With characteristic wit, humour and verve, Brenna Hassett delves deep into our evolutionary past and inner nature to explain why humans are 'the ape who never grew up'. ― Alice Roberts

A thought-provoking discussion about why humans experience a long childhood ... Hassett artfully dissects the sometimes problematic dogma surrounding growth and development.....- Science

About Brenna Hassett

Brenna Hassett is a British/American biological anthropologist and archaeologist whose career has taken her around the globe, researching the past using the clues left behind in human remains. She has a PhD from University College London and she is also a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum, London. Brenna specialises in using clues from the human skeleton to understand how people lived and died in the past. Her research focuses on the evidence of health and growth locked into teeth to investigate how children grew (or didn’t) across the world and across time. Her first book – Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death, published by Bloomsbury – was well received by critics at the LA Times, the Guardian, and The Times, which named it one of the top 10 science books of the year. She followed this up with Growing Up Human: The Evolution of Childhood in 2022.

Brenna is a founding member of the TrowelBlazers Project, dedicated to increasing the visibility of women in the digging sciences and is currently Lecturer in Forensic Osteology and Archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire. She gave Humanists UK's prestigious Blackham Lecture in 2024

Darwin Day

Darwin Day has been celebrated since the 1930's, marking the birthday (Feb 12th) of arguably the world's greatest ever scientist, Charles Darwin, the father of evolution by natural selection. Bristol Humanists has held a Darwin Day annual lecture by a noted scientist for the last 10 years. Significant previous Darwin Day lecturers have included Adam Rutherford, Angel Saini, Nichola Raihani & Anil Seth

A bookstall will be provided by our partners Heron Books. The bar/cafe of the Folk House will be open beforehand and afterwards. Doors open at 18.30pm.
Hot food is available to order in advance by emailing folkhousecafe@gmail.com, before February 14th