Peter Allen

Pete Allen is in the first year of his doctorate researching the hunting behaviour of early humans.

His study, entitled: "Investigating and visualising the effects of environment on prey detection rates: A key variable in human evolution" will examine how early humans - from the Oxygen Isotope Stage 3, which occurred between 35,000 and 55,000 years ago - located their prey. Pete is taking an innovative approach to this research, which embodies collaboration across disciplines - he is recreating environments from this time period virtually and then getting participants in his study to interact with them.

Building these virtual realities will give him an incredible amount of control over what participants see, allowing him to recreate a wide range of scenarios and environments and develop a comprehensive picture of how early humans interacted with their environment in relation to their hunting activities.

He is preparing to run the first set of experiments in the coming months, with the virtual environments almost ready to be explored by participants in Pete’s study.