John Hawks

John Hawks

Home
Speaking
Books
Archive
About

South Africa

How Homo naledi got into the Dinaledi Chamber
New research from Dirk van Rooyen gives the most detailed look ever at the entry path into the deepest parts of the Rising Star cave system.
 • 
John Hawks
Plant-eating and meat-eating in Australopithecus
A new approach to sampling nitrogen-15 in tooth enamel opens a window into the diets of early hominins.
 • 
John Hawks
Research highlight: Brain of the Taung Child
A new study of the endocast discovered a hundred years ago asks, what if we found this fossil today?
 • 
John Hawks
The circumstances of the Taung discovery
The textbook story of the fossil leaves out a wider context in which scientists interpreted the first evidence of Australopithecus.
 • 
John Hawks
Finding ancient fire use in the Rising Star cave system
The study of the underground landscape enters a new phase with evidence of charcoal and burned animal bone in deep chambers.
 • 
John Hawks
How old is the "early Homo sapiens" skull from Florisbad?
Introducing a new preprint in which I examine critically the evidence for a skull thought to be contemporary with Homo naledi.
 • 
John Hawks
Cooking rhizomes in the Middle Stone Age
Border Cave has exceptional preservation of plant remains, giving a window into the diets of hominins.
 • 
John Hawks
Return of the “amazing” Boskops
Bringing some scientific reality to an excerpt from a book that tries to revive the myth of an ancient, large-brained race of humans.
 • 
John Hawks
The “amazing” Boskops
A book tries to revive the myth of a large-brained ancient race in southern Africa. It was wrong in 1958 and remains wrong today.
 • 
John Hawks
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.
 • 
John Hawks
© 2025 John Hawks
Substack
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture