Sarah Hlubik

Biography

Sarah Hlubik studies the origin of fire using behavior in humans. This research is focused on the Koobi Fora study region on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana located in northern Kenya. Previous work has identified a 1.5million year old site with evidence for the co-occurrence of fire and human behavior, implying that the hominins in the area were using fire on the site. Current research seeks to tie this use to the broader fire ecology of the region and determine whether fire use in the Pleistocene had an effect on the natural ecology of the landscape as well as to understand how fire use may have affected other hominin behaviors.