The Award of The Anthropological Society of Nippon
“The Award of The Anthropological Society of Nippon” is given to members of ASN who is considered to have made an exceptional contribution to his/her field of specialization.
2011 award
Gen SUWA
Prof. SUWA, who discovered first, in December 1992, a fossil specimen of Ardipithecus ramidus-ca. 4.4 million year-old, has conducted interdisciplinary work with Prof. Tim White, USA, Dr. Berhane Asfaw, Ethiopia, and others on the collected specimens of Ar. ramidus since the early 2000s, and contributed to clarifying the paleobiology of the fossil hominids older than the australopitecine grade of human evolution. He has led the morphological analysis on the teeth and skulls through developing new approaches. He also contributed to the assessment and understanding of the pelvis, upper and lower limbs, and in formulating hypotheses on the paleo-environment, human-ape common ancestor, and the evolutionary significance of the findings. These results have been published in eight papers in the journal Science.
