john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

La Cotte de St. Brelade profiled

Thu, 2011-09-01 23:11 -- John Hawks

The BBC is running a nice article about the ongoing excavations on the island of Jersey at La Cotte de St. Brelade. "Neanderthal survival story revealed in Jersey caves".

La Cotte's collapsed cave system contains intact ice age sediments spanning a quarter of a million years, revealing a detailed sequence of Neanderthal occupation and occasional abandonment, against a background of changing climate.

"The site is the most exceptional long-term record of Neanderthal behaviour in North West Europe," says Dr Matt Pope from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.

It's a neat site and the Beeb are doing an episode of "Digging for Britain" about it this month.

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.