The History Department’s Public History Program and the Anthropology Department co-sponsored the presentation of The Search for Amelia Earhart, an illustrated lecture by Thomas F. King, PhD, author of Thirteen Bonesand Amelia Earhart’s Shoes on November 11, 2009.

The 1937 disappearance of aviation pioneers Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan is a mystery that continues to fascinate. Several drastically different hypothetical answers have been provided to the question: “What happened to Amelia Earhart?”

These include:
 

• Ran out of gas and crashed into the Pacific Ocean
• Captured by the Japanese and executed
• Hidden as part of an elaborate espionage operation by the U.S., Great Britain, or others
• Trapped in a time/space warp
• Became Tokyo Rose
• Returned to the U.S. and died in the 1990’s
•  

OR

• The Nikumaroro Hypothesis—landed, survived for a while, and died on Nikumaroro atoll in the Phoenix Islands

Author Thomas F. King is the senior archaeologist for the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), an interdisciplinary scientific research team that has been working since 1989 to solve the enduring mystery of the 1937 disappearance. King’s talk will review the fascinating history of the concerted effort to find out what happened to Earhart. He will highlight the latest findings since the updated 2004 edition of Amelia Earhart’s Shoes, a book he co-authored on the search. He will also discuss his treatment of the evidence in his new novel, Thirteen Bones, and TIGHAR's plans for another expedition in 2010 to ─ perhaps ─ finally solve the mystery.

-In November 2009 the Departments of Anthropology and Psychology invited Dr. Fred Previc to speak on this new book, The Dopaminergic mind in human evolution and history (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Previc has argued that the evolution of modern human cognition is an epigenetic process that resulted in the increased presence of chemical neurotransmitters in human brains. According to Previc this was due to major changes in diet and physical activities during the Pleistocene era.