Rise of humanity focus of faculty lecture

The rise of humanity around 325,000 years ago will be the focus of a webinar from Sheridan College to be presented at 7 p.m. Thursday.

The presentation by Bj Kristiansen, an adjunct professor of anthropology at Sheridan College, will explore how what started as eight or nine human species once alive on the planet dwindled over around 300,000 years to only one surviving species – us.

His talk, part of the college’s Thickman Faculty Lecture Series, will be via Zoom.

Kristiansen was born in Norway and immigrated to the United States when he was five years old. He grew up in Chicago, received a degree in paleontology and history from Augustana College and came to Wyoming in his early twenties.

He worked in the energy industry as a geologist for 25 years, and worked for the Big Horn and Decker coal companies as a geologist and geo-archeologist.

In addition to his work at Sheridan College, he works for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, Land Quality Division, and is a board-certified professional geologist.

The webinar can be accessed Thursday at www.sheridan.edu/lectures.