john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

A Neandertal research report

Mon, 2012-10-01 10:15 -- John Hawks

Rebecca Wragg Sykes went to the European Society for Human Evolution meetings last week and reports on some of the Neandertal-related research presentations: "ESHE 2012 Meeting Report: Neanderthal Edition!".

Predictably there were some disputes during questions for papers, mainly regarding issues surrounding the dating of the industries termed "transitional": the Chatelperronian in SW France and also some Spanish sites following a talk by Zilhao et al.. Despite an embargo on new results from the Grotte de Rennes at Arcy sur Cure, France, Talamo et al. presented new chronological data from the site of Les Cottes, one of the only sites in Europe with a complete and defined sequence of the different archaeological cultures from late Middle Palaeolithic, Chatelperronian and Aurignacian- the earliest Upper Palaeolithic...

Much more of interest.

Tags: 
Neandertals
meetings

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.