john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Mary Leakey Google doodle

Wed, 2013-02-06 08:05 -- John Hawks

Today, Google is featuring archaeologist Mary Leakey in its first-ever paleoanthropology Google doodle:

Google doodle honoring Mary Leakey

There she is, finding some Laetoli footprints with some remarkably well-defined toes, with her dalmatians at hand. Today would have been Leakey's 100th birthday.

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.