Benchmark Papers mark culmination of project awarded largest single grant made by the British Academy

Lucy to Language: The Benchmark Papers has been published by Oxford University Press. It is edited by Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble, and John Gowlett. It represents the culmination of a project supported by the largest single grant ever made by the British Academy.

The British Academy Centenary Research Project, called Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain, was funded by a 7-year project grant from the British Academy, worth over a million pounds, following a competitive call to celebrate the centenary of the Academy’s establishment in 1902.

The Lucy to Language project explored how the early hominid brain evolved from its apelike beginnings, around 3-5 million years ago, to its modern human form, and the implications this has for the evolution of modern human sociality.

The Centenary Project was formally launched in October 2003 and the Academy’s funding formally ended in September 2010.