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Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
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Artist’s reconstruction of a new fossil species Hemignathus vorpalis (bottom), based on its probable resemblance to adult males of its genus: H. wilsoni (Akiapola’au, above) and H. lucidus hanepepe (Kauai Nukupu’u, middle). Illustration © J. Hume


Artist’s reconstruction of a new fossil species Hemignathus vorpalis (bottom), based on its probable resemblance to adult males of its genus: H. wilsoni (Akiapola’au, above) and H. lucidus hanepepe (Kauai Nukupu’u, middle).

Illustration © J. Hume

 

Dolores Piperno in the field
Dolores Piperno

Dolores Piperno, PhD, is curator of New World archaeology and a research scientist. She studies the origins of agriculture in Mexico and other areas of the New World tropical forest, and the way people have interacted with the environment for the past 10,000 years.

Darwin recognized the value of domestication as a model of evolution, so a Darwinian perspective has always been fundamental to my research into the origins of agriculture.

I have always liked archaeology and botany, and what I do now combines those fields in an area of the world, the tropics, where the plant life is magnificent.

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