Blog articles
Gertrude Caton Thompson within the history of archaeology in Africa
As I read through the 20th-century archaeologist's memoirs, I find the flavor of the field in the 1920s and 1930s.
Have human lifespans been constant for the last 2000 years?
Maximum lifespan is hard to assess in past populations. The data suggest that lifespan has been increasing over time.
Did somebody bury the bones of Toumaï?
I recount the complicated story of how a discoverer of the Toumaï skull has raised doubts about its context.
Did Neandertals evolve in a population sink?
The dynamics of adaptation in shrinking populations may help understand how many ancient populations evolved.
Notes on Ashley Montagu, recent human evolution, and human equality
The anthropologist argued that humans have stopped evolving, but that isn't the way we understand human evolution today.
How much was migration a creative force for culture change?
An essay by Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd explores the way that cultures evolved by contact.
Human evolution stopping? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I look into arguments by the geneticist Steve Jones that human evolution has stopped. It hasn't.
A short introduction to information theory
I lectured this week in my Biology of Mind course [http://biologyofmind.johnhawks.net/] about information theory, and in particular the concept of Shannon entropy. I’ve typed up a few notes for my students, and I’m cross-posting them on my own blog because they are relevant to another
Book review: Spook, by Mary Roach
An entertaining book that looks at the history of seances and spiritualism, with a few cringey moments.
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.
