Dr Christopher Dunmore

Dr Christopher James Dunmore is a Paleaoanthropologist working on reconstructing fossil hominin hand use during locomotion and manipulation, as well as the emergence of tool-use in our lineage.

Dr Dunmore completed his PhD at the University of Kent in 2019, which was focused on linking internal bone morphology with the hand-use in living great apes, in order to infer habitual hand-use in Australopithecus sediba for the first time. Christopher is currently a Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, the Director of the Imaging Centre for Life Sciences, and a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the NewHuman grant led by Prof. Matthew Skinner. He is developing his research on the functional morphology of the hand with other aspects of hominin post-crania, in order to reconstruct the adaptive niche of the earliest members of our genus, Homo.

• Human Evolution
• Functional Morphology
• Imaging Techniques

Dr Dunmore's research interest in the functional morphology of fossil hominin hands extends to all elements of the post-cranial skeleton. He is particularly interested in the ability of internal bone architecture to change during life to better cope with mechanical loads. Therefore, these internal structures allow us to infer for which movements fossil species habitually used their skeleton rather than simply the movements their joints would allow.

In order to access this internal morphology, Christopher uses micro computed-tomographic scans of fossil and great ape bones and so has a keen interest in modern image-processing techniques. To accurately interpret the functional significance of this internal bone signal of behaviour, Dr Dunmore frequently contextualises this within the morphology of living great ape species with observable behaviours. Exciting new methodological developments in analysing 3D structures, as well as bone biology and cellular processes, are also new developing strands in his work. 

• ANTB3020: Foundations of Biological Anthropology
• ANTS3080: Academic and Research Skills
• ANTB3160: How Humans Evolved
• ANTB5330: Independent Research Project
• ANTB6290: Human Anatomy and Movement
• SACO5000: Practical Data Analysis and Interpretation  

Module Convenor:

• ANTB5410: Human Evolution: The Fossil and Archaeological Record
• ANTB6250: Homo sapiens: Biology, Culture and Identity
  

Current PhD students:

• Andrea Lukova 
• Samar Syeda 

Dr Christopher James Dunmore is a member of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) and the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution (ESHE). Dr Dunmore is also a member of the Skeletal Biology Research Centre (SBRC) and the Director of the Imaging Centre for Life Sciences (ICLS).