The Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny* (CARTA) was established in a collaboration between faculty at UC San Diego and at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, along with some interested scientists at other institutions. CARTA was established as a UC San Diego recognized Organized Research Unit (ORU) in January 2008.

As the word anthropogeny implies, the primary goal of CARTA is to “explore and explain the origins of the human phenomenon”. In other words, finding the answers to the two age-old questions regarding humans:

Where did we come from?

How did we get here?

CARTA is a virtual organization formed in order to promote transdisciplinary research into human origins, drawing on methods from a number of traditional disciplines spanning the humanities, social, biomedical, biological, computational & engineering and physical & chemical sciences.

*Anthropogeny: The investigation of the origin of man (humans) Oxford English Dictionary, 2006. (1839 HOOPER Med. Dict., Anthropogeny, the study of the generation of man.)