Leslie Crum Aiello FBA (born May 26, 1946, in Pasadena, California) is an American paleoanthropologist and professor emeritus of University College London.
[4] She co-wrote the textbook, An Introduction to Human Evolutionary Anatomy,[5] which uses the fossil record to predict the ways early hominids moved, ate and looked.
[7] Aiello studies evolutionary anthropology with focuses on human adaptation and life history, as well as the evolution of the brain, diet, language and cognition, and locomotion and its energetic costs.
She highlighted that terrestriality (movement of early hominids from forest to savannahs) is the oldest stage that led to human civilization.
Aiello identified social implications of meat eating, one of which is food sharing, which does not happen often in primates, which strengthens the bond between female and offspring.
[6][8] Aiello emphasized that a large brain, long legs and the creation and use of tools probably evolved together, but not as a single package at the beginning of the lineage of Homo, especially in Australopithecus ancestors.
And, "their flexible diet — probably containing meat — was aided by stone tool-assisted foraging that allowed our ancestors to exploit a range of resources."
The foundation seeks to support all areas of anthropology and other related disciplines that are concerned with human development, origins and variation.