Matilde Carrera prospectus defense

Title: Philosophy of Paleoanthropology Data, Underdetermination, and Evidence about Past Human Populations Abstract: This dissertation examines standards of evidence in scientific claims about the human past. Drawing on case studies from paleoanthropology, paleogenetics, population genetics, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions, this work develops a philosophical framework to analyze how evidence is generated, assessed, selected, and integrated across the disciplines that contribute to research on human evolution. This fosters our philosophical understanding of evidential practices under conditions of uncertainty, data degradation, and ethical sensitivity. Four chapters explore how contested claims are evaluated in research on human origins: first, I introduce a framework for evidential assessment in paleoanthropology, second, I analyze how data authenticity is secured in ancient DNA research; third, I distinguish different underdetermination types within population genetics models, and fourth, I evaluate how environmental reconstructions frame demographic hypotheses to support claims about human-environment interactions.