Construction Work has begun on a permanent home for the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES) at the University of Cambridge.

A giant crane was used to hoist sections of a tower crane over Cambridge’s Keynes House and the Judge Institute of Management Studies.

The construction site is on Fitzwilliam Street but could not be accessed directly as the weight of the giant crane would have damaged the basements of the historic Georgian terraced houses which extend under the roadway.

The Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies was established in 2000 to promote research in human evolution and diversity. The new building, designed by architects Sheppard Robson and built by Marriott Construction, will provide laboratory facilities, housing for the Duckworth Collection, and office and seminar space.

The Duckworth Collection is one of the major human biological collections in the world, and attracts research scientists from around the world. A tribute to 150 years of anthropological exploration by British scholars, its maintenance requires environmentally controlled conditions, while its use for research and learning needs appropriate access. The Fitzwilliam Street building provides both.

The focus of research in LCHES is the integration of biological, anthropological and archaeological approaches to the study of human evolution and human diversity. It grew out of the work of the King's College Research Centre project on the Evolution of Human Diversity. Its central theme is that human evolution must be studied within an integrated multidisciplinary framework.

The Centre aims to enable researchers in biological and social anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, genetics, zoology and evolutionary aspects of geography to formulate and develop joint research programs.

LCHES research includes projects on morphological and behavioural evolution, archaeological excavations, surveys and analyses, human genetic and developmental diversity, as well as human behavioural ecology, with a particular emphasis on exploring human evolution as both a historical event and the product of evolutionary processes.

Members of the Centre are involved in undergraduate teaching and graduate supervision in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The £5.5M building is due to be completed in October next year.


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