john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Panda gestion

Sun, 2012-10-14 20:25 -- John Hawks

Here's a story that showed up in my feed this morning: "Prehistoric man ate panda, claims scientist".

Wei Guangbiao said prehistoric man ate the bears in what is now part of the city of Chongqing in south-west China.

Wei, head of the Institute of Three Gorges Paleoanthropology at a Chongqing museum, said excavated panda fossils "showed that pandas were once slashed to death by man".

This really wouldn't be very surprising, as occasional evidence of human predation or consumption of other carnivores, including bears in Europe, goes way back.

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.