john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Book sample: Mark Pagel's Wired for Culture

Tue, 2012-02-28 20:51 -- John Hawks

I've just bought a new book by Mark Pagel, titled Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind. I'll be doing a review when I get through it, but in the meantime, I noticed that I can now embed samples of Kindle books right here on my own website.

Those with larger screens could handle a larger embed here, but I've tried to strike a compromise that will not be too terrible on small screens, since unlike my photos, this can't scale with device size. If you click on the "expand screen" icon, it will grow to take up your browser screen, which I find most effective on the iPad and iPhone.

The sample runs through the preface, introduction and prologue of the book.

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.