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Our species emerged during the Pleistocene, the Great Ice Age. Against the odds, an African ape was to become the most successful species on the planet. In our homeland of Africa, our numbers increased, and then modern humans spilled out of Africa, into Arabia, going on to colonise Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. This extraordinary expansion was set against a background of changing climate. Our ancestors spread across a world filled with wonderful megafauna – huge beasts like woolly mammoths, mastodons, sabre tooth cats and cave bears. Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers made paintings of Ice Age animals inside caves in France and Spain, and made ivory carvings of them. But by the end of the Great Ice Age, many of those animals had disappeared forever.
After studying medicine at Cardiff University, Alice worked as a doctor before moving into academia with a job in the anatomy department at Bristol University. She undertook research on ancient human remains, and was asked by Channel 4’s Time Team to write reports on some human bones they had excavated. In 2001, she made an unexpected start on her media career when the bone reporting led to appearances on screen. She went on to present programmes and series on BBC2 including Coast, The Incredible Human Journey, Don’t Die Young and The Origins of Us. Alice considers herself to be an environmentalist, and she is an occasional presenter of Costing the Earth on Radio 4. She believes that one of the most important lessons of evolutionary biology is that humans are part of Nature, not separate from it.
In 2012 Alice was appointed a Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, where she works alongside her continued work as an author and broadcaster.
The Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture
The Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture is held each year in honour of Save the Rhino founder patron Douglas Adams, who was a dedicated spokesperson for conservation right up until his death in 2001 at the age of 49.
The lecture is held in aid of two charities, Save the Rhino and the Environmental Investigation Agency.