Fossil profile: U.W. 101-258 and humeral torsion
The upper limbs of humans are different from those of living great apes in many ways, but one way in which they are fairly similar is the orientation of the ...
All posts tagged with Homo naledi
Killing it: From handaxes to hafted spears, no difference in hunting or meat-eating
The change in technology from Acheulean to Middle Stone Age in Africa was a major event in human prehistory. Or was it?
Florisbad: How old is the ‘early Homo sapiens’ skull?
This week, Lee Berger and I posted a new preprint in which we investigate the context of the Florisbad fossil hominin specimens. Our preprint is on the open ...
Border Cave rhizomes from the early Middle Stone Age
I’m pretty excited about today’s paper revealing new evidence of cooked rhizomes from Border Cave in South Africa. The paper is in Science, by Lyn Wadley and...
Rising Star open science profile
Ars Technica has a very nice long profile of the Rising Star project by Lydia Pyne: “Rising Star found a new species—now it wants to find a new way for paleo...
Link: Three big insights into our African origins
Recently, I delivered a lecture to the American Society for Human Genetics, focusing on the African record of human origins. It was a great privilege to spea...
BRICS leaders meet Homo naledi
Last week, the leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) met in a joint summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, along with ...
Link: A new field season of the Deep Roots project at Victoria Falls
Larry Barham of the University of Liverpool and international collaborators have a field project in Zambia examining the “Deep Roots of Human Behavior”, inve...
New excavations starting at Rising Star, an article pointing to some ways to follow the expedition
Newsweek is running a great story by Meghan Bartels about our renewed excavations in the Rising Star cave over the next month, and the strategies the team is...
Human brain evolution looks gradual. If you ignore enough data…
Bernard Wood’s research group has a new paper on brain size evolution in hominins, led by Andrew Du in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B: “Pattern a...
Neo one of the top 10 science images of 2017
Really honored to have one of my photos of Neo included as one of Cosmos magazine’s “Top 10 science images of 2017”.
Reviewing the September excavation in the Rising Star cave system
In September, the team was underground in the Rising Star cave system, working at new excavations in the Lesedi Chamber and Dinaledi Chamber. I posted update...
Science Friday revisits Homo naledi with classroom resources
This is a neat feature from NPR’s Science Friday giving resources for teachers who want to include the SciFri episode on Homo naledi as part of their classro...
Homo naledi was chipping its teeth amazingly often
I’d like to point everyone to this new article that may give some insight into the diet or behavior of Homo naledi: “Behavioral inferences from the high leve...
Lichens did not grow on Homo naledi
Earlier this summer, Francis Thackeray published a short paper in the South African Journal of Science suggesting that lichens had deposited manganese upon t...
A synopsis of our Homo naledi symposium
American Scientist kindly invited me to write up a synopsis of our session on the biology of Homo naledi at the AAPA meetings in April. The article is now on...
Deliberate deposition and Homo naledi
Earlier this spring, the Journal of Human Evolution published a commentary questioning our team’s interpretation of taphonomic evidence from the Dinaledi Cha...
Link: Discover magazine on South African hominin sites
Discover magazine did its March, 2016 cover story on the recent hominin discoveries of South Africa, including Rising Star and Malapa, and other important fi...
A symposium on the biology and context of Homo naledi
I was in Atlanta with colleagues last week for the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists were last week, in association with...
Skeletal remains from Milner Hall, a new excavation area in Sterkfontein Caves
This month, the Journal of Human Evolution has published a short paper from Dominic Stratford and colleagues describing two hominin fossils from Milner Hall,...
How long does it take to publish new hominin species after discovery?
In an earlier post, I looked at descriptions of new hominin species during the last 25 years, to see how long they took from submission to acceptance in the ...
Hominin species and time in peer review
In 2015, two new hominin species were published: Australopithecus deyiremeda and Homo naledi. One of the criticisms I’ve seen of both discoveries is the idea...
Michael Shermer: Murdering the facts about Homo naledi?
Yesterday, Scientific American released a short essay by Michael Shermer, “Did This Extinct Human Species Commit Homicide?”. Shermer is a regular columnist a...
Link: Lee Berger interviewed in Nautilus
Nautilus is running a nice interview with Lee Berger about Homo naledi and other things: “The Man Who Used Facebook to Find an Extinct Human Species”.
Homo naledi on Wellcome Trust 10 open access facts
The Wellcome Trust blog has a post celebrating 10 years of the Trust’s mandatory open access publication policy, with 10 facts about the impact of its open a...
Anonymous sexism in paleoanthropology
Seems like every week, someone writes an article drawing attention to a new episode of sexism in science. Today it’s my turn to shine a light on this issue.
Upcoming Homo naledi lectures in Madison and Milwaukee
For readers in Wisconsin, I’ll be doing two lectures on the Rising Star project and the discovery of Homo naledi at the end of next week.
Link: Homo naledi and digital convergence in paleoanthropology
Todd Hanson comments on whether the Rising Star project may be a sign of a future of digital convergence in paleoanthropology: “From Cave to Rave: What Digit...
Video: How do we identify new species from fossils
The Madison “Blue Sky Science” series of Q and A got me to answer a reader’s question: “How do we identify new species from fossils?”
Link: ‘A textbook example of how to do science’
An interesting take from Steven Newton of NCSE on the Homo naledi context paper by Paul Dirks and our team: “The Cave of Homo naledi, or A Textbook Example o...
Link: ‘Naledi farewell concert’ at Maropeng
The public exhibition of the Homo naledi fossils at Maropeng is going to close soon, and they are planning a “Naledi Farewell Concert” for next Sunday!
Infographic: Homo naledi and the underground astronauts
UnboxScience has done an incredible infographic treatment of the excavation process of Homo naledi.
From The Conversation: ‘Homo naledi: determining the age of fossils is not an exact science’
This is a reblog of my recent article on the Africa edition of The Conversation, “Homo naledi: determining the age of fossils is not an exact science”, which...
From The Conversation: ‘Homo naledi fossil discovery a triumph for open access and education’
This is a reblog of my current article on the Africa edition of The Conversation, “Homo naledi fossil discovery a triumph for open access and education”, whi...
Is Homo naledi just a primitive version of Homo erectus?
We’ve gotten lots of feedback on the new species Homo naledi. Most has been enormously positive, a little bit has been critical. In particular, a few scienti...
Link: Announcement of Homo naledi
Last week Lee Berger and our team announced the first series of findings from the Rising Star Expedition and subsequent analyses of the hominin fossil remain...