john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Iguanodoubt

Mon, 2010-11-15 16:27 -- John Hawks

Darren Naish has written a nice discussion of the taxonomic difficulties of Iguanodon. It's a guest post at the Scientific American blog. Dinosaurs and hominins seem to be the most prominent cases where old taxonomic names end up causing problems, so it's nice to have clearly-written summaries that illustrate both the scientific issues and the involvement of the nomenklatura in resolving disputes.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.