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Middle Pleistocene

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Ghostbusters of human origins

Humans tend to mix and interact with each other. Geneticists are once again starting to take that seriously, changing their view of our origins.

Meme with the four movie Ghostbusters crossing the streams
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Bison bones show butchery practices 400,000 years ago

In the Gran Dolina cave site, ancient people left a bone bed of bison killed in two seasons and butchered at the site with expedient tools.

Panoramic image of excavation at Gran Dolina with archaeologists at work.
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The transition to Middle Stone Age from Acheulean did not make humans more deadly

Reading a meta-analysis of faunal data by Geoff Smith and coworkers that concludes that all Middle Pleistocene African peoples hunted the same prey animals.

A group of eland
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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 speak to more than 5000 members of this professional organization, together with other distinguished experts on African genetic variation and health. Here I share

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An possible ancestor of Homo floresiensis from the Middle Pleistocene of Flores

Gerrit van den Bergh and coworkers describe dental remains and a jaw from Mata Menge, 700,000 years ago.

Images of teeth in multiple views, with arrows pointing into a jaw to show the tooth positions
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Did humans colonize the northern latitudes without fire?

An article by Wil Roebroeks and Paola Villa argues that fire was not present in Europe before 400,000 years ago.

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Did giant humans walk the Middle Pleistocene earth?

A National Geographic documentary program prompts questions about some fossils from South Africa with large body size estimates.