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Archive
Dec 2024
3:
When hominins walked in each others' tracks
Nov 2024
24:
“Lucy”, superstar of evolution, at fifty
Nov 2024
4:
A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura
Sep 2024
15:
Late Neandertals: more diverse than most scientists thought
Jul 2024
29:
What do we know about the ancestry of Homo erectus?
Jun 2024
16:
Julurens: a new cousin for Denisovans and Neanderthals
Jun 2024
1:
The evolutionary mystery of the German cockroach
May 2024
25:
New insights into the biology of Homo luzonensis
Apr 2024
28:
Why did the ancients make gigantic handaxes?
Apr 2024
22:
Four amazing Stone Age sites with wooden artifacts
Apr 2024
16:
How many bathrooms have Neanderthals in the tile?
Apr 2024
6:
Eclipses for the ancestors
Mar 2024
29:
A remembrance of Frans de Waal
Jan 2024
28:
Vagrant birds and ancient human habitats
Jan 2024
21:
Guide to Paranthropus species
Jan 2024
14:
Secrets within the teeth of the first Homo fossils
Dec 2023
31:
Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2023
Dec 2023
10:
A visit to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City
Dec 2023
3:
All the hominins made tools
Oct 2023
20:
Tracing the signature of African-to-Neandertal gene flow
Oct 2023
15:
Lecture: Opening new frontiers in human origins
Oct 2023
13:
Homo erectus keeps getting older
Oct 2023
10:
Guide to Sahelanthropus, Orrorin and Ardipithecus
Sep 2023
30:
Interaction and mixture: big picture and small
Sep 2023
20:
Guide to Australopithecus species
Sep 2023
3:
The real story of myosin, jaw muscles, and ancient brains
Aug 2023
31:
When did human chromosome 2 fuse?
Aug 2023
14:
Climate models, Neandertals, and Denisovans
Aug 2023
6:
Tracing the genetic histories of ghost apes
Aug 2023
2:
Research highlight: Growth and development in human origins
Jul 2023
30:
Ancient apocalypses are so disappointing
Jun 2023
1:
Debates about Neandertal cave art miss the point of their visual culture
May 2023
24:
Research highlight: Homo naledi teeth
May 2023
21:
Ghostbusters of human origins
May 2023
15:
Did two pulses of evolution supercharge human cognition?
Apr 2023
19:
Lecture: Finding ancient minds in the human evolutionary tree
Apr 2023
2:
What color were Neandertals?
Mar 2023
19:
New evidence is revealing the ages of death, birth, and menarche in Neandertals
Mar 2023
6:
Explaining the X chromosome hole in Neandertal ancestry
Feb 2023
13:
Many people have a little Neandertal in the brain. Does it matter?
Feb 2023
3:
When did our ancestors start looking up to the stars?
Jan 2023
24:
Solving the mystery of the Red Deer Cave people
Jan 2023
19:
Probing the pathogens that afflicted ancient humanity
Dec 2022
25:
Ancient amputations tell remarkable stories of survival and care
Dec 2022
19:
Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2022
Dec 2022
15:
The Nesher Ramla site: a third way between Neandertals and modern humans?
Dec 2022
7:
Finding ancient fire use in the Rising Star cave system
Nov 2022
27:
A Neandertal recipe that tasted like the foods of later people
Nov 2022
20:
Bison bones show butchery practices 400,000 years ago
Nov 2022
6:
Research highlight: The frontal sinuses of fossil hominins
Oct 2022
23:
Panel: Who or what is Homo naledi?
Oct 2022
9:
Understanding numbers as cognitive technology
Oct 2022
2:
Research highlight: Vertebral wedging in Homo naledi
Sep 2022
24:
Neandertals hunted dangerous prey. How they killed them.
Sep 2022
4:
How I build ethics into my introductory course from the first day
Sep 2022
4:
How the new White House policy on public access to federally funded research may affect data
Aug 2022
28:
A transition to a new platform for my words and video
Aug 2022
21:
Different transport strategies for different large prey species at Abric Romaní
Aug 2022
14:
Why anthropologists rejected the aquatic ape theory
Aug 2022
6:
Research highlight: The limbs of Homo naledi
Jul 2022
10:
When did humankind's last common ancestor live? A surprisingly short time ago
May 2022
24:
Kabwe: A famous fossil unearthed amid the human costs of mining
May 2022
11:
Research highlight: Taking human origins research into the next decade
May 2022
4:
Research highlight: Pelvic fragment from the Lesedi Chamber
Apr 2022
8:
Why I moved to Ghost instead of Substack
Mar 2022
26:
Research highlight: Mandibles from Malapa
Feb 2022
26:
Research highlight: Strategizing public-facing work within an academic career
Jan 2022
10:
Lecture: Are we the last Neanderthals?
Nov 2021
17:
Fossil profile: AL 400-1 mandible and the curving line of human evolution
Nov 2021
6:
Research highlight: A partial skull from Rising Star
Oct 2021
15:
Fossil profile: Skhūl 1 and the mixing of populations
Oct 2021
8:
Fossil profile: Zlatý kůň and the Neandertal heritage of early Upper Paleolithic Europeans
Jun 2021
10:
Lecture: New mysteries of human origins
May 2021
14:
Fossil profile: Sangiran 31 and the exceptionally thick skulls of Homo erectus
May 2021
2:
Ancient genetic introgression between cave hyenas and spotted hyenas
Apr 2021
30:
Brain-body allometry revisited across mammals
Mar 2021
13:
Fossil profile: U.W. 101-258 and humeral torsion
Mar 2021
11:
Fossil profile: BOU-VP-16/1 and mortuary practice
Feb 2021
12:
Research highlight: Looking at what Darwin knew about primate relationships
Feb 2021
1:
Research highlight: Accurate depiction of uncertainty in ancient DNA research: The case of Neandertal ancestry in Africa
Jan 2021
10:
How the lives of mothers matter to offspring survival in wild primates
Dec 2020
20:
A palimpsest of artifacts on a glacial landscape
Dec 2020
13:
Looking at the traces of wear on tools used by capuchin monkeys
Dec 2020
1:
Research highlight: Making ancient DNA more ethical
Oct 2020
27:
An update to the 23andMe ancestry algorithm, how it constructs a model of ancestral populations
Oct 2020
24:
Why does ethical ancient DNA sampling seem so complicated?
Oct 2020
2:
Research highlight: A look at the questions raised by Homo naledi
Aug 2020
30:
Research highlight: How the pandemic must change field research
Jun 2020
9:
Research highlight: Sexual dimorphism in the relationship between the gut and pelvis
May 2020
21:
Goat immunity modified by introgression during and after domestication
May 2020
6:
Neandertals got 6% of their genomes from Africa
May 2020
4:
The genetic ancestry of modern lions
Apr 2020
27:
How much Neandertal DNA do today's African peoples have?
Apr 2020
22:
The transition to Middle Stone Age from Acheulean did not make humans more deadly
Apr 2020
15:
An enormous sample sheds light on the Denisovan ancestry of people in Iceland
Apr 2020
14:
Chicken ancient DNA and artificial selection during medieval times
Mar 2020
13:
How much have baboons and geladas hybridized during their evolution?
Mar 2020
3:
There are no “anatomically modern” elephants. Why do we treat humans differently?
Feb 2020
28:
Lecture: How Homo naledi matters to our origins
Feb 2020
12:
Research highlight: Introducing a juvenile skeleton of Homo naledi
Feb 2020
2:
How old is the "early Homo sapiens" skull from Florisbad?
Jan 2020
4:
Evidence of cooking rhizomes from an early Middle Stone Age context in Border Cave, South Africa
Jan 2020
1:
Part of a Denisovan mtDNA resides in the nuclear genomes of many living people
Dec 2019
23:
Did Acheulean hominins have long-distance obsidian trade?
Oct 2019
16:
Denisovan traits bring up the old problem of understanding morphological continuity
Oct 2019
2:
Research highlight: Use ancient remains more wisely
Aug 2019
25:
Recounting the repatriation of aboriginal remains from Lake Mungo
Aug 2019
21:
Geneticists work to understand how skeletons wound up in a mysterious Himalayan lake
Aug 2019
21:
A mid-century observer wrote about hybridization and Neandertals
Jun 2019
26:
How will ancient proteins change paleoanthropology?
Apr 2019
10:
Homo luzonensis: a new species of hominin from Luzon
Feb 2019
19:
How much do scientific societies fear Plan S for open access?
Jan 2019
18:
How capable were early human ancestors of crossing open water?
Jan 2019
17:
How much do Y chromosome haplogroups shape our views of modern human origins?
Jan 2019
6:
How did English come to have different words for "ape" and "monkey"?
Jan 2019
3:
Three big insights into our African origins
Jan 2019
2:
A critical look at the idea of Australopithecus prometheus
Oct 2018
1:
Lecture: Who were the ancestors of the Neandertals?
Sep 2018
22:
How collagen fingerprinting is changing the way archaeologists understand ancient sites
Jul 2018
12:
Artifacts of a pre-Clovis tradition from the Gault site, Texas
Apr 2018
27:
A perspective on how media marginalize scientists from developing countries
Mar 2018
31:
Should archaeologists really fear and loathe geneticists?
Feb 2018
9:
The so-called Toba bottleneck simply didn't happen
Jan 2018
22:
What's the deal with the Sahelanthropus femur?
Jan 2018
7:
Lida Ajer, early modern human remains in island Southeast Asia
Jan 2018
2:
My photo of the Neo skull is named one of the top science images of the year
Jan 2018
1:
How many students in paleoanthropology can see casts of Australopithecus afarensis?
Dec 2017
28:
Scientists doubted the Piltdown hoax from the beginning. What can they teach us?
Oct 2017
4:
Lecture: How Homo naledi is changing human origins
Aug 2017
3:
When anthropologists argue about species, is it evidence, or ego?
May 2017
28:
An unusual rate of dental chipping may give clues about Homo naledi's diet
May 2017
22:
Features of the Grecian ape raise questions about early hominins
Jan 2017
1:
Can we build a science of human evolution that people can trust?
Dec 2016
26:
New footprints from Laetoli shed light on how the science has changed in 40 years
Dec 2016
3:
Why are humans evolving to lack their wisdom teeth?
Aug 2016
2:
Should we be surprised if Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans didn’t form stable hybrid zones?
Jun 2016
17:
My article giving an overview of our symposium on Homo naledi
Jun 2016
16:
Looking at the hypothesis of deliberate deposition for Homo naledi
Jun 2016
8:
An possible ancestor of Homo floresiensis from the Middle Pleistocene of Flores
May 2016
26:
Neandertals built a circle out of stalagmites deep underground. What does it mean?
Mar 2016
30:
A revised chronology for Liang Bua places Homo floresiensis earlier than 60,000 years ago
Mar 2016
21:
How much sex did it take for Neandertal DNA to enter modern populations?
Nov 2015
28:
A paleoanthropological Thanksgiving
Nov 2015
19:
Did humans approach the southern tip of South America more than 18,000 years ago?
Nov 2015
18:
Another Denisovan from Denisova Cave
Nov 2015
16:
What is the ‘braided stream’ analogy for human evolution?
Oct 2015
12:
A modern look at pollen from Shanidar and the question of "flower burials"
Sep 2015
19:
Two anthropologists float some curious notions about Homo naledi
Jun 2015
15:
Why do male bonobos have such low body fat?
Apr 2015
1:
How the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is slowly turning into a dissertation grant
Mar 2015
30:
Stephen Jay Gould and the role of provocation in science
Mar 2015
13:
Recent adaptive evolution to resist the toxic effects of arsenic
Jan 2015
28:
The Manot 1 skull and how we now look at Neandertal ancestry in early modern humans
Jan 2015
27:
An ancient human pulled from the bottom of the Taiwan Strait
Dec 2014
3:
A look at the intentional markings of Homo erectus
Nov 2014
1:
Castmaking and early data dissemination in paleoanthropology
Oct 2014
22:
Secrets of the genome from Ust'-Ishim
Jun 2014
26:
Presentation on species concepts and the hominin fossil record
Jun 2014
24:
Describing the Great Rift Valley
Jun 2014
23:
Becoming human: Presentation on Mount Carmel sites and cultural origins
Jun 2014
23:
An interview with Clive Finlayson about Neandertal lifeways
Jun 2014
20:
Interview with Dr. Jill Pruetz about chimpanzees in a savanna habitat
Jun 2014
19:
Did Homo erectus get herpes from chimpanzees?
Jun 2014
10:
Interview with Dr. Agustín Fuentes about primate cooperation and human origins
Apr 2014
2:
Should there be a new genus to contain Homo habilis?
Mar 2014
22:
Have Sahelanthropus and Orrorin been written out of existence?
Mar 2014
19:
Chimpanzee communities are hundreds of years old
Mar 2014
3:
The Kebara 2 hyoid speaks for itself, but is it a Neandertal?
Jan 2014
21:
Seven things about evolution
Sep 2013
12:
David Attenborough says humans have stopped evolving. He's wrong
Jan 2013
29:
The FoxP2 protein sequence from Neandertals and Denisovans is shared by many people today
Aug 2012
30:
New findings from the Denisova 3 genome at high coverage
Jun 2012
6:
Remembering my journey among the kurgans
Mar 2012
18:
Some say humans are apes, but I disagree
Jan 2012
12:
Public interests in data from federally funded research
May 2011
23:
Growing genetic data suggest a two-phase model for prehistoric population expansions in Africa
May 2011
13:
Did Neandertals live at or above the Arctic Circle?
Mar 2011
15:
Modern human origins was more interesting than a single point of dispersal
Mar 2011
14:
Did humans colonize the northern latitudes without fire?
Mar 2011
11:
Did human language evolve as a spandrel?
Sep 2010
18:
How much of human evolution was due to polygenic adaptation?
Aug 2010
13:
Why do some invasive species start to succeed only after a delay?
Jul 2010
1:
What is the temporal bone from Darra-i-Kur, Afghanistan?
Jun 2010
22:
New fossil material from Luzon suggests another small hominin may have lived on that island
May 2010
6:
My reactions on the publication of the first draft Neandertal genome
Apr 2010
30:
The "blooming, buzzing confusion" of William James
Mar 2010
24:
A mysterious mitochondrial sequence from Denisova Cave, Russia
Jan 2010
4:
Return of the “amazing” Boskops
Dec 2009
18:
Remarkable preservation of an Acheulean campsite at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov
Oct 2009
6:
An in-depth look at the pelvic reconstruction of Ardipithecus
Sep 2009
29:
A new study of old shells shows shoreline resource use by Homo erectus
Sep 2009
7:
Gertrude Caton Thompson within the history of archaeology in Africa
Aug 2009
25:
Have human lifespans been constant for the last 2000 years?
May 2009
18:
Did somebody bury the bones of Toumaï?
Mar 2009
21:
Did Neandertals evolve in a population sink?
Jan 2009
22:
Notes on Ashley Montagu, recent human evolution, and human equality
Jan 2009
7:
How much was migration a creative force for culture change?
Oct 2008
10:
Human evolution stopping? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sep 2008
26:
A short introduction to information theory
Jul 2008
17:
Book review: Spook, by Mary Roach
Mar 2008
30:
The “amazing” Boskops
Dec 2007
12:
Our new paper on why human evolution accelerated
Jun 2007
24:
HIV susceptibility locus protects against an extinct virus
Jun 2007
18:
Why did some Polynesian island societies lose their pigs?
Jun 2007
16:
Darwin witnessing the plagues of European colonization
Jun 2007
3:
For Linnaeus, classification followed from the new idea that species were fixed
Feb 2007
28:
High adult mortality in some contemporary hunter-gatherers
Feb 2007
7:
How research into the causes of health disparities matters to cancer
Jan 2007
30:
Ninety percent of your brain is (not) useless
Aug 2005
11:
The legend of Henry Ford's kingpins in evolutionary biology
Jun 2005
27:
A case study of race and medicine: the BiDil trial
Apr 2005
26:
Who first inhabited the European Arctic? A look at Mamontovaya Kurya
Apr 2005
16:
Data access to fossil hominins, reflecting on the NSF policy
Apr 2005
12:
The earliest stone toolmakers had some technological sophistication
Apr 2005
2:
Did giant humans walk the Middle Pleistocene earth?
Mar 2005
26:
How the PhyloCode would change names in human evolution
Feb 2005
19:
Are the "earliest modern human" skulls really modern?
Feb 2005
8:
Ardipithecus ramidus remains from a second field region, As Duma
Oct 2004
31:
The Homo floresiensis discovery, an initial FAQ
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