Habitat Team
Ovi Chris Rouly
Dr. Rouly is the Director of Maelzel, Inc. He has served as Assistant Research Professor at the University of Central Florida and Lecturer at the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in Computational Social Science from George Mason University of Fairfax, Virginia. He has taught courses in the techniques of Modeling and Simulation of complex social systems using agent-based modeling. His core research involves the generation and study of small-group social behavior using technologies like Artificial Life (ALife), Virtual Worlds, Multi-agent systems, and Individual-based and Agent-based models.
Australopithicus afarensis "Lucy"
John Gurke (SI) created this image of a male of the Australopithicus genus. However, when the fossilized remains of the original female "Lucy" were discovered in 1974 they were thought to be the evolutionary "missing link" between the higher-primates Gorilla and Chimpanzee, and we humans. We learned much about the physiology of our ancestors from her nearly complete skeleton but, she was not the "missing link." There were other hominid species between "Lucy" a little over 3 million years ago and the time of the Pan-Homo split roughly twice that far back in time. Early hominid species are the prototypes for the basic research done in the Habitat Lab.
Ötzi, the "Iceman"
"The Iceman" was found in the Alps when a snow bank melted to reveal his mummified remains. That was in 1991 but he died likely around 5,300 years earlier. Together with his remains were found the largest single collection of personal artifacts to have come from that period of European history. With him were found bits of clothing, food, personal articles, and his weapons. His discovery gave science a window into the late Chalcolithic and the early Bronze Age. Working from our knowledge of "The Iceman" we can extrapolate a reasonable sense of what life may have been like in the Stilt Villages around the Alps at the same time.
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