Studying animal tooling can provide clues to the mysteries of human evolution. Human beings used to be defined as “the tool-maker” species. But the uniqueness of this description was challenged in the 1960s when Dr. Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees will pick and modify grass stems to use to collect termites. Her observations called into[…]
Lately, much news from the field of paleoarchaeology and anthropology has centered on Neanderthal bedfellows. By Dr. Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist In a cave tucked into the limestone hills of the Asturias region of Spain, there lie the remains of a group of 13 Neanderthals that date to between 50,600 and 47,300 years ago. The site is[…]
At the very least, in order for spoken language to be a possibility, a species has to have the right anatomical equipment. By Dr. Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist The first two pages of Claire Cameron’s novel The Last Neanderthal contain a glossary—a handful of words used by the family of Neanderthals at the center of the story.[…]
Was there something about the Neanderthals’ cognitive capacity that didn’t measure up? By Dr. Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist One of the most tantalizing topics about Neanderthals is their cognition: how it developed and whether it was much different from patterns of thought in Homo sapiens. We know from the archaeological record that much of Neanderthal hunting, foraging,[…]
Understanding their population has helped us to understand what it is to be human. By Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist In 1856, a scattered collection of bones was found in the Feldhofer Cave of the Neander Valley in Germany. Scientists had never seen anything like it. The skull resembled that of a human, but it had a low,[…]
Paleoanthropologist Carol Ward explains how walking upright marked a milestone in hominin history. By Dr. Tom GarlinghouseArchaeologist/Anthropologist Bipedality, the ability to walk upright on two legs, is a hallmark of human evolution. Many primates can stand up and walk around for short periods of time, but only humans use this posture for their primary mode[…]
Some populations of Neanderthals were definitely more carnivorous than others. By Dr. Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist One of the more tenacious misconceptions about Neanderthals is that they were exclusively meat eaters. Sure, in some of the colder regions of Europe plant food would have been very seasonally limited, so meat was almost certainly a large part of[…]
Even genetics support the idea that Neanderthals were better sprinters than runners. By Dr. Anna GoldfieldArchaeologist If you’re like me, you view long-distance running as a somewhat unrealistic aspiration and see those people who do it well as remarkable creatures. The truth, though, is that Homo sapiens are well-designed for loping along for long distances[…]
The bones show interbreeding Neanderthal and Denosivan humans. This article reprinted from RFE/RL. A piece of bone from a cave in Russia has yielded what may be the biggest archaeological find of the year, media reported on August 30. The bone belonged to an ancient human who had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.[…]
If you go by editorial cartoons and T-shirts, you might have the impression that evolution proceeds as an orderly march toward a preordained finish line. But that’s not right at all. Introduction Evolution doesn’t follow a preordained, straight path. Yet images abound that suggest otherwise. From museum displays to editorial cartoons, evolution is depicted as[…]
Hydrogen is the first element in the periodic table and essential for life on Earth. It may also be key to shifting away from fossil fuels toward clean sources of energy, but challenges remain. Although hydrogen is the lightweight of the chemical elements, it packs a real punch when it comes to its role in[…]
Darwin to understand the convergence of disparate scales of geological and human history. The event now known as “the voyage of the Beagle” comprises Charles Darwin’s circumnavigation as ship’s naturalist on the second of three surveying voyages by H.M.S. Beagle; the writings published as his first book, the Journal of Researches; and the genesis of his theory[…]
The University of Melbourne’s anatomy museum features fossil models from an entirely fictional early human; a forgery that derailed the study of our evolution for decades. ‘Piltdown man’ was the name given to a handful of fossil fragments found at a site in East Sussex, UK in 1912. The fossils, quickly identified as being from[…]
Astonishing new research shows that fossil teeth, like trees, contain detailed records of the environments in which they grew. Increasingvariation in the climate has been implicated as a possible factor in the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens) 300,000 years ago, as well as the more recent demise of our enigmatic evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals. But[…]
What does the discovery of Homo luzonensis mean for our understanding of humanity’s history? This week, anthropologists working in the Philippines unveil new fossils that they say belong to a previously undiscovered speciesof human relatives. The fossils come from Callao Cave, on the northern island of Luzon, and are at least 50,000 years old. The[…]
Discovered in 1925, the skull was the first fossilized archaic human found in Western Asia. Introduction Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh (“Cave of the Robbers”)[1] is a prehistoric archaeological site in Upper Galilee, Israel.[2] It is situated 800 m (2,600 ft) from the Nahal Amud outlet, approximately 30 m (98 ft) above the wadi bed (148 m (486 ft) below sea level). It was found to house a fossil today known[…]
Using the family relationships between single-celled protists alive today, researchers hypothesized what their evolutionary ancestors looked like – and then looked in the fossil record for matches. Every step you take, you’re likely walking on a world of unseen and undescribed microbial diversity. And you don’t need to head out into nature to find these[…]
Newly found fossils point to a link between a rise in atmospheric oxygen and the first emergence of complex life on Earth. In a suspension of disbelief, the countless readers who have picked up J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books have readily accepted that Ents, the ancient treelike creatures of the fictional Fangorn forest, walk, talk[…]
Vision is a window onto the world, its qualities determined by natural selection. Evolution has favoured the modification and expansion of primate vision. Compared with other mammals, primates have, for example, greater depth perception from having forward-facing eyes with extensively overlapping visual fields, sharper visual acuity, more areas in the brain that are involved with[…]
Humans stand out among all the mammals as being the only species to totter about on two feet. We are the bipedal apes. A ground breaking study of the bones of a 3.2 million year old human ancestor (‘Lucy’) revealed that she died from the crushing impact of a fall from high in the trees. This exciting[…]
A key requisite for the use and appreciation of all beads and pendants is a level of hominin self-awareness that essentially expresses full cognitive modernity. Abstract This paper attempts to explore beyond the predictable and banal archaeological explanations relating to early beads and pendants. It recounts replication experiments to establish aspects of technology so as[…]
Study has led to a much deeper understanding of what we mean when we speak of “life”. By Matt Brauer In my one post I mentioned in passing the feature article appearing in November’s issue of PLoS biology. In that paper, Richard Robinson describes some of the difficulties faced by researchers into the Origin of Life. The origin of replicating[…]
Grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and other things we animals experience. Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use[…]
Hominin systematics, encompassing both taxonomy and phylogeny, has significant implications for how the evolution of species and traits are understood and communicated. Abstract Hominin systematics, encompassing both taxonomy and phylogeny (Strait, 2013), has significant implications for how the evolution of species and traits are understood and communicated. Following a recent influx of fossils (e.g., Brown et[…]
DNA studies reveal that African elephants belong to a very successful and widespread family. For a long time, zoologists assumed that there were only two species of elephant: one Asian and one African. Then genetic analyses suggested that the African Elephant could be divided into two distinct species, the African Forest and African Savannah elephants. Now[…]
By 1914, paleoanthropology recognized five species of human ancestors, two sub-species, and the tangible evidence of humanity’s antiquity proved utterly captivating. The Quest Begins: Neanderthals Meet Science Fiction In 1856, workers at a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley of Germany turned over a curious set of skeletal remains to a local amateur naturalist, Johann[…]