Paleolithic Papers #35

Genus Homo:

H. sapiens:

The late Pleistocene dating for Cooper's Ferry is disputed and here is the response.

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals made string, cord or twine.

H. antecessor:

H. antecessor is either the last common ancestor for Denisovans, Neandertals and modern humans or really, really close to it.

H. heidelbergensis:

The Broken Hill skull has been dated from ~299 thousand years gao.

H. naledi:

The DH7 juvenile skeleton gives some insight as to how H. naledi matured.

H. erectus:

H. erectus lived alongside paranthropus and australopethicus in South Africa.

Carnivores were responsible for the accumulation of H. erectus fossils at Dmanisi.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. afarensis:

Lucy's brain grew like a modern human's, but was organized like an ape's.

META:  

What did ancient humans look like?

How thick was the enamel on plio-pleistocene hominins?

How did the talus evolve in early hominins?

Were there multiple descents from the trees?

The role of cladistics in paleoanthropology.

Paleolithic Papers #34

Genus Homo:

Modern human and Neandertal relics are washing up on shore in the North Sea.

Neandertal DNA might be more common in modern humans than previously thought.

What cave art reveals about human nature.

Scientists have uncovered a ghost lineage of ancient hominins in West African genomes.

Was there evidence of a technological break or gap or evolution at a cave in Israel?

Modern Humans (H. sapiens):

Mesolithic site  remains show cooking tubers took place.

Pottery from the Amur River region from the late Pleistocene has been found.

Settling of the Americas remains complex with outliers in cranial morphology being found.

How old is the oldest H. sapiens skull?  The one from Florisbad.

A skeleton of a 30 year old woman from Mexico dating from the end Pleistocene/dawn Holocene has interesting insights to the early native American populations.

What was the climate variability like during the early expansions of modern humans out of Africa?

Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis):

The last Neandertals might have lived at Byzovaya, above the Arctic Circle in Russia.

Neandertals made an epic trek 60k years ago to the Altai Mountains.

There is evidence of two separate migrations into Asia by Neandertals.

Inbreeding might have been the doom of Neandertals.

Denisovans:

Mitochondrial DNA from Densovans has been found in modern human nuclear DNA.

Denisovans were more complex than we originally thought.

Meet the Denisovans.

H. antecessor:

Two juvenile scapula from Spain are examined.

H. erectus:

H. erectus arrived in Java 200,000 years later than originally thought.

H. erectus might have engaged in long range trade for obsidian.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. anamensis:

What ecology did A. anamensis live in?

META:

Nasty recessives aren't an obstacle to introgression between hominins.

What we have learned about human evolution and what remains to be understood?

African climate forcing simulation for the last 140,000 years and its implication for human evolution.

There's a new method for figuring out where ancient humans came from.

Human language probably evolved gradually.

When did hominins begin to understand death.

How to estimate the contamination of ancient DNA by modern.

Paleolithic Papers #33

Genus Homo:

Were the other hominins the first victims of the Sixth Mass Extinction?

45,000 year old projectiles have been found in Europe.

45,000 year old microlith tools have been found in Sri Lanka.

How long range endurance evolutionary pressure shaped the modern human heart.

Teeth from modern humans and possibly Neandertals have been found in the Manot Cave in Israel.

Foot bones from the Manot Cave appear to be both Neandertal and modern human.

What was the environment of the Manot Cave in?

Analysis of premolar teeth roots suggest a very complex demographic situation in China during the Pleistocene.

Modern Melanesians have introgressed genes associated from Denisovans and Neandertals.

There are genetic traces of paleolithic populations in North Africa.

There are potential adaptations to bipedalism in H. sapiens in the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.

John Hawks questions whether or not the 3 root teeth found in east asians is really an introgression from Denisovans.

H sapiens:

What would a truly modern human look like?

The coastal paleoecology of modern humans in Easter Africa from the Pleistocene to Holocene.

Humans have been harvesting clams along the coast of British Columbia since at least the Terminal Pleistocene.

Was modern humanity's original home the wetlands of Botswana?

Modern humans may have followed the monsoons out of Africa.

These Yana Culture (modern humans) lived above the arctic circle 30,000 years ago.

H. neanderthalensis:

A spat over Upper Paleothic tech has begun.

Some dispute Neandertals were the source of cave art in Spain.

However, an eagle talon necklace was found in for the first time in Spain and has been ascribed to the Neandertals.

The Neandertal teeth of Marillac get examined.

H. erectus:

Hamadryas baboons are used as a proxy to understand H erectus behavioral evolution.

H. erectus could have been a persistence hunter based on estimated water loss.

Genus Australopithecus:

How Australopithecus changed how we thought humanity evolved.

Cerebral blood flow rates in Australopithecines was lower than in modern great apes for similar brain sizes.

Studying the origination and extinction of hominin species using A. anamesis, A afarensis, and Aridopithecus ramidus.

Genus Orrorin:

The environment of the site where Orrorin died was swampy.

Genus Danuvius:

A new bipedal brachiator ape from the Miocene recently found from Germany may usurp the Dryopithecus from the ancestral position for hominins.

META:

The hominiod to hominid difference in third molar enamel.

How human brains develop differently than great ape.

How scientists know human ancestors ate bugs.

Differences between human and other primate saliva might be because of diet.

The brain was considerably reorganized during hominin evolution.

When did hominins become behaviorally and psychologically modern?

Studying stone flakes can tell a lot about hunter gatherer behavior.

Paleolithic Papers #32

Genus Homo:

H. sapiens (modern humans):

Stone tools have been recovered from Cooper's Ferry, Idaho (USA) dating from 16,000 years ago.

Was the basal most H. sapiens surprisingly modern 500,000 years ago?

Human hearts evolved for endurance.

Foot prints have been found on Calvert Island, British Columbia dating from over 10,000 years ago.

H. neanderthalensis (Neandertals):

There was a shift at a single site of how stone tools were made during Late Acheulian the at Caune de l’Arago.

Did modern humans and Neandertals keep interbreeding over a long period?

Did the Neandertal Eustachian tube contribute to their extinction?

Neandertals were more innovative with their tools than normally credited.

The Neandertals footprints give insight into their social lives.

How Neandertals used birds, including their feathers, in the Qesem Cave, Israel.

Denisovans:

Denisovans seem to have had fingers more like modern humans than Neandertals.

Using genetics and epigenetics, researchers have reconstructed the shape of the face of at least one Denisovan.  The facial features are distinct from Neandertals and modern humans.

The introgression of Denisovan genetics into modern humans gave us an immunity boost.

Sima de los Huesos Hominin

At least one of the Simea de los Huesos proto Neandertals seems to have been murdered.

One of the hominins at Sima de los Huesos had a pathological growth for its ears.  It might not have made the individual deaf after all.

The cochlea evolution of the Simea de los Huesos Hominins gets examined.

H. naledi:

H. naledi's baby teeth were unique.

Genus Paranthropus:

P. robustus:

The femural neck of P. robustus gets examined.

Genus Australopithecus:

What were the Australopithecines?

Australopithecines seem to have breast fed longer than their contemporaries.

A. anamensis:

A nearly complete skull of A. anamensis gives a face to the species and shows evolution is messy showing even in hominins species often overlap in time.

META:

The trabecular boot gets examined in 4 different hominins.

Humans are unique in how they digest fatty foods.

Did a single gene mutation 3.3 million years ago make hominins prone to heart attacks?

Paleolithic Papers #30

Genus Homo:

Just how many ghost lineages are hiding in the human genome?

Demographics modeling and the genetic introgression of hominins.

Modern Humans (H sapiens):

The Apidima 1 fossil from Greece is of H. sapiens, but dates from 210 kya.  This is far, far older than previously thought for modern humans to be outside of Africa.  Apidima 2 is a Neandertal and younger.

While exploring part of the genome associated with the sense of smell, scientists found genes from Neandertals and an unknown human relative.

The routes of modern humans into Australia get revisited.

What was being eaten at the Manot Cave, Israel roughly 40 kya.

What made humans the 'fat primate?'

Has evidence of murder from the Paleolithic been found?

The genetic components of height in prehistoric Europe are explored.

The genetic and archaeological evidence for the peopling of the Americas.

Using genetic introgression evidence to infer when modern humans dispersed into the rest of the world.

Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis):

Evidence from Italy shows Neandertals circa 170k years ago during the Pleistocene butchering already dead carcasses of elephants.

The migration history of Neandertals get revealed via DNA studies.  Neandertals in Europe were pretty stable as a genetic population for at least 80k years.  They migrated east into Siberia and seem to have been very distantly related to the Neandertals that lived there previously.

Neandertals used resin to glue stone tools to shafts and whatnot.

Neandertals repeatedly used the 'Ein Qashish site as a rarely found open air settlement between 54,000 years ago to as far back as 71,000 years ago.

The Geißenklösterle Cave layers are radiometrically dated.

H. erectus:

There are reports of a find in Indonesia of 1.8 mya Homo erectus fossils.

Rising Star Hominin (H. naledi):

The femoral neck and shaft structure gets examined.

H. naledi's teeth are more like australopithecines and early Homo species rather than later members of the genus Homo.

Genus Australopithecus:

A stratigraphic investigation of the site where Little Foot was discovered was undertaken.

Little Foot has longer than average australopithecine arm bones.

META:

The season changes to savannahs and how it might have impacted hominin diets.

The promise of how protein analysis could change paleoanthropology.

The Sahara Desert dates back, intermittently, to the Pliocene.

The Olduvai Basin gets seismically imaged.

How stone tool techniques could have been acquired.

The hominin ilium is pretty unique.

How many different hominins did our ancestors actually meet?

Paleolithic Papers #28

Genus Homo:

How did ancient Homo choose places to do its cave paintings?

H. sapiens (modern humans):

Apparently, Late Pleistocene hunter gatherers survived in Iberian ancestry.

Modern humans originated in South Africa and spread through Africa just before migrating out of the continent.

Researchers have found a narrative piece of art from Paleolithic Europe.

A very bold paper claims Australian Aboriginals arrived in Australia 120,000 years ago.

Neandertals:

A commentary is made on the dating of La Quina Amont.

Neandertals might have had adaptations to the cold like wooly mammoths.

Denisovans:

The first pieces of Denisovan skulls have been verified.

Tongzi Hominin:

The Tongzi hominin's teeth are not like H. erectus teeth like had been previously thought.

H. floresiensis (Hobbits):

The environment of Flores at the time of the Hobbit was explored: it was a grassland!  Or so sayeth the rats.

H. erectus:

How big were the groups in Paleolithic India?

H. erectus purposefully started fires on grasslands.  Time to rethink the anthropocene start, folks.

H. naledi:

The root and pulp morphology of a molar for H. naledi gets examined.

Genus Australopithecus:

The brain sizes of A. afarensis and A. africanus are examined.  Did they grow large from eating bone marrow?

Genus Paranthropus:

Dental caries were found in a molar from a P. robustus.

Comparing the metatarsal of Paranthropus to extent hominoids.

META:

The ability to miniaturize stone tools sets hominins apart from other primates.

Did the slowing of the Antarctic current regulate the glaciation cycle?

Green corridors in the Sahara might have facilitated hominin dispersal.

The grandmother hypothesis might explain why women live longer than men.

Why do humans have wisdom teeth that need to be removed?

Unravelling ancient signals of DNA introgression in modern humans.

Paleolithic Papers #27

Genus Homo:

Scientists are still stumped by the evolution of human breasts.

Hominins in Levant hunted different prey than did the resident hyenas.

H. sapiens:

Pleistocene hunters in Sri Lanka had a taste for monkey meat that lasted a long, long time.

East African hunter gatherers appear to have had a common ancestry.

There are more missing ancestors in our genome other than Neandertals and Denisovans.

Did modern humans self domesticate?

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals primary food source was, in fact, meat, at least, at Les Cottés and Grotte du Renne, in France.

What was the impact of the interglacial climate changes on Neandertal diets at Baume Moula-Guercy, Ardèche, France?

The replacement of Neandertals by modern humans was a little more complicated than what used to be thought: there was some, erm, intermingling.

Footprints of Neandertals from Gibraltar have been found.

Some are going hmmm over the stone artifacts at Châtelperronian.

Did inbreeding help do in the Neandertals?

Neandertals walked just like modern people did.

Sima de los Huesos Hominins:

The Middle Pleistocene hominins from Sima de los Huesos had very Neandertal-ish brains.

Denisovans:

Who were they? John Hawks comments.

H. erectus:

Britain may return the iconic Kabwe skull to Zambia.

Genus Paranthropus:

P. robustus:

What was the genetic origin of the pitted enamel hypoplasia in P. robustus?

Genus Aridopithecus:

A. ramidus postcranial remains from Ethiopia get a description.

A. ramidus had adaptations for waling bipedal.

META:

Is the African Eve hypothesis wrong?

Why did menopause evolve?

One paleoanthropologist's hopes for a human evolution museum in Israel.

Human and nonhuman primate brains are compared for clues to human brain evolution.

What were the origins of human language?

The tale of the multiregional hypothesis and the out of africa hypothesis are told.

Can we determine which hominin teeth came from when found?

The current 'gap' in the middle Pleistocene is very important to human evolution.

Root growth for teeth is compared between humans and apes.

Paleolithic Papers #26

Genus Homo:

How our ancestors survived and adapted 250k years ago.

In the last million years, the mutation rate in the human line has greatly decreased.

Estimating Late middle Pleistocene population sizes.

Hominins may be ecologically unique.

The introgression and hybridization between modern H. sapiens and archaic hominins gets examined.

Ancient DNA from Africa has been starting to be uncovered.

H.  sapiens:

Dogs appear to have been helping hunt as far back as 11,5000 years ago.

Do few tools found mean few people were present?

The seasonal scheduling of shellfish collection from the Mesolithic and more recent are examined.

The oldest dog burial known to date has been found in the Americas dating from the end of the Pleistocene.

Why modern humans evolved different colored skin.

A femur with some unique traits, but probably from anatomically modern humans from the Niah Caves in Malaysia gets examined.

The raw materials used in stone tools in Israel by early H. sapiens is explored.

H. neanderthalensis:

The foot bones of individuals from Montignac-sur-Vézère, Dordogne, France are examined.

The introgression of Neandertals and other archaic hominids had an impact on gene expression in Eurasian populations.

Neandertal spears could be thrown successfully to kill.

Modern humans replaced Neandertals at Bajondillo Cave in Spain 44kya, surprisingly early.

Neandertals introgressing into modern human populations reintroduced alleles that were lost when the ancestors of modern eurasians left africa.

The book, The Smart Neanderthal, gets reviewed.

Neandertals appear to have, in at least a few instances, mass prey killers and then only taken the best parts, leaving the rest.  John Hawks replies.  He also discusses the mass kill site at Gran Dolina, Spain.

Denisovans:

The Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains was occupied by Denisovans from 192,000 years to almost 52,000 years ago with a period where Neandertals were present.  Stone tools from a hominin date from 300,000 years ago, but it is not clear who made them.  The site was occupied at least until 20,000 years ago.

New unknown hominins:

There appears there is another hominin that modern people recently interbred with.

An archaic hominin from between 150k to 250k years ago had modern tooth eruption.

H. antecessor:

While similar to modern humans in many ways, H. antecessor's were very different.

H. erectus:

It appears Chinese H. erectus populations might have been diverging from Indonesian populations.

Genus Australopithecus:

The era of Australopithecus in South Africa gets a multidisciplinary examination.

Did australopithecines associate with antelope to avoid predators?

A. sediba:

A. sediba is unique species.

A. africanus:

Recently, authors suggested a specimen was of a new species of Australopithecus and resurrected an old name for A. africanus ("A. prometheus").  John Hawks discusses why this won't work.

The long limb bones of StW 573 are studied and discussed..

The bony labyrinth of StW 573 is detailed and what its implications are.

The forearm bones were asymmetrical on StW 573: could that have been a sign of antemortem trauma?

The dental wear of StW 573 was more like A. anamensis than other australopithecines.  Was this evidence it was from a different species than A. africanus?

StW 573's functional anatomy, biomechanical capabilities and potential niche are discussed in light of the new information gathered.

The site where StW 573 was found and its past investigations are detailed.

A. anamensis:

The environment A. anamensis lived in gets examined.

META:

The central place of Africa in human evolution.

Could early hominins crossed water?

How did humans lose their hair and get sweaty?

The importance of human foot muscles to bipedalism.

A new book on the impact of tectonics on human evolution gets reviewed.

Paleolithic Papers #25

Genus Homo:

Stone tools found in China from the Pleistocene of the Levallois tradition hint at a potential local development of the technology.

A cave painting in Borneo in Indonesia dates from 40,000 years ago.

Inbreeding was common in hominins.

Crossing out of Africa was not difficult because the Arabian peninsula was green.

Hominins were not the cause the megafaunal extinctions in Africa, rather climate and the expansion of the grasslands were.  Unless, of course, the evidence for H. erectus purposefully expanding the grasslands with fire are accurate.

How did human language arise?  We don't really know.

How did members of the genus Homo survive in east Africa from paleolithic to mesolithic?

Analyzing Aurignacian tools using morphometrics.

A Russian site and its dating from the Upper Paleolithic is discussed and explored more.

H. sapiens:

The Lago Santa people had African-like features and were possibly Clovis culture descendants.  The peopling of South and Central America turned out to be fairly complicated.

The peopling of the Americas is getting a lot of interest once more with genetic studies.

Multiple types of projectiles found in Texas hint at potentially multiple migrations into the Americas.  Note: this could also be an example of a transition from one projectile point technology to another.

It seems the dispersals into the AMericas were more complex and hint at an Australasian component.

How did people cross the Wallace Line?

How the environment of northwestern Argentina changed across the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary.

People appear to have inhabited Tibet at least as early as 30,000 years ago.  This is much earlier than previously thought.

Star watching to understand the seasons may have very early origins.  Cave paintings from 40,000 years ago definitely suggest this.

Why do modern humans have round heads?

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals were just as violent as modern humans.

Neandertal children suffered from extreme stress during the winter.  Lead exposure was noted.

Neanderthals in the Caucasus transported obsidian over 250 km to make tools with.

Neandertal genes associated with neurogenesis in modern humans have been found.

H. erectus:

Are stone tools of the Acheulean style from 190k to 240k years ago a sign Homo erectus survived in Saudi Arabia until a late date?

H. erectus social behavior is discussed wrt an animal carcass. 

H. habilis:

Oldowon stone tools, the style associated with Homo habilis, have been found in Algeria dating from 2.4 million years ago.

Genus Australopithecus:

Little Foot, a likely A. africanus, is emerging from the stone matrix it was preserved in.

Little Foot's brain endocast suggests a more basal, chimpanzee like brain.

The original studies of A. africanus when it was known as A. prometheus are discussed.

Genus Paranthropus:

The scapular anatomy of P. bosei gets studied.

KNM-ER 47000 appears to be from P. bosei.

META:

U-Pb dating of flowstones from South Africa constrains the dates hominins were evolving there and shows they were living in dry climate conditions.

Trabecular Bone Fraction gets compared between modern humans, hominins and other primates.

The stone tool gripping abilities of modern humans, hominins and apes are compared.

3d analysis of bone tools sheds some light on how they were made and used.

Three plus different hominins coexisted in the early Pleistocene ~2 million years ago in the Omo-Turkana Basin (P. bosei, H.habilis and H. erectus. possibly H. rudolfensis as well).

What was the dietary diversity of early Pleistocene hominins?

The trabecular structure of the distal femur is compared between humans, apes and baboons is compared.

Paleolithic Papers #22

Genus Homo:

What restricted hominin living locations in middle Pleistocene China?

Could the evolution of human beings be the root cause of some mental disorders?

H. sapiens:

Discovery of spearheads and other points in Gault, TX indicate a new, previously unknown and unique stone tool tradition that predates the Clovis culture.

The models of how the Americas were populated get a run down.

Modern humans may have arisen from pockets of semi isolated populations in Africa.

Did modern humans dominate the world because we specialized at being generalists?

The modern pygmy population of Flores, Indonesia shows evidence of Denisovan and Neandertal introgression, but not of older hominins.  This (amongst other information) indicates insular dwarfism arose twice on Flores with two different hominin species and the Hobbits are not related to the modern Rampasasa people of Flores.

H. neanderthalensis:

The Krapina Neandertals used their anterior teeth for tasks other than eating based on their tooth fractures.

Neandertals apparently had a different ontogeny went it came to walking.

Some caution is being urged at using microbiota of the mouth as evidence of the interbreeding between modern humans and Neandertals.

Neandertals appear to have fire starting tools.

H. erectus:

Stone tools from China date from 2.1 million years ago, pushing back in time the exit from Africa by 400kya.  The question is which hominin this is.  H. erectus seems the most likely, but that would mean H. erectus is older than we thought.  John Hawks appears to support the idea this is H. erectus and states there is at least one other Chinese site that has similar dates.

There is a pelvis found that is close to modern humans',  but apparently is really from H. erectus given the rest of the skeleton.  It may be the modern human pelvis was part of the normal variation of later H. erectus.

Island dwarfism in canids during the Pleistocene in Java could have implications for H. erectus and the potential evolution of the 'hobbits,' H. floresiensis.

Did...laziness (?!?!) doom H. erectus?

H. habilis:

The use, reuse and creation of tools at the Oldowan technological site HWK EE.

H. naledi:

3 specimens from the Rising Star cave give some insight into the variation in H. naledi.

Genus Australopithecus:

The hominin jaw underwent significant change in the earliest australopithecines.

A. afarensis and A. sediba walked bipedally differently.

The Swartkrans Oldowan site provided some interesting differences between other Oldowan stone tool sites.

META:

A 2 million year long perspective of the hydroclimatic environment of human evolution in Southeast Africa.

Eating bone marrow shaped the evolution of the hominin hand.

Trabecular bone patterning in the human hand hints at changes as to how the hand was used by hominins.

Paleolithic Papers #21

Genus Homo:

Why are human brains so large?  What genes make our brains grow so much larger than most other animals in relative terms?  Does the size come at a cost?

H. sapiens:

Who were the Nataruk people?

The Zhoukoudian Cave's human habitation is 35 thousand years old.

Mesolithic Mediterranean people's diet has been discovered via analysis of their teeth.

More evidence suggests modern humans colonized the Americas via the coastal route.

Paleogenetic evidence also suggests two different lineages did the colonization.

Mesolithic intestinal parasites have been found in Sweden.

Diets of the Niah Cave residents might be detectable from their mandibles.

The Clovis tech and skeletal remains from the Anzick site are, in fact, from the same time frame at the Holocene/Pleistocene boundary.

The interaction between modern humans and the archaic populations it replaced in Africa as it evolved needs to be examined.

Late Pleistocene tools in Sri Lanka show what plants the locals were eating at the time.

H. neanderthalensis:

How DID Neandertals hunt?  By not throwing, it appears, but by close-quarters thrusts and stabs.

New insights into the Neandertal thorax.

Denisovans:

Stone tools from the Denisovan cave were used to butcher animals.

H. erectus:

How H. erectus may have interacted with a lake margin ecology.

H. naledi:

Based on studying the teeth of H. naledi, it definitely appears to be a member of the genus Homo.

H. habilis:

The biomechanics of the OH 8 foot get examined.

Genus Australopithecus:

The cranial thickness of the StW 578 hominin (A. africanus, iirc) gets examined and similarities to modern humans are found, while differences from Paranthropus are uncovered as well.

The DIK-1-1f A. afarensis child has finally been described.  Among the interesting features is the child had ankles and feet that would help it climb trees, unlike the adults of the same species.  The big toe, as a child, was far, far more mobile than as an adult.  This would allow for grasping while climbing.  However, the child would lose this as it grew up.  Even as a child though, the Dikka hominin was definitely bipedal.

META:

The environment of 2 million years ago where hominins lived was wetter than previously thought.

Muscles thought to be uniquely human have been found in great apes.

How hominins leading to humans carved out their unique niche and how it differed from apes.

Studying breakage patterns on bones could have been produced by hominins.

Caution with studying collagen from prehistoric hominin fossils is warranted.

Large size might have evolved already by the time of the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.

Paleolithic Papers #20

Genus Homo:

Were movable eye brows a significant force in human evolution?

Hominins were not present where megafauna were common, but may have still contributed to the mass extinction.

Where did the Neandertal introgression hypothesis originate?

Just what butchered a rhino in the Philippines 709,000 years ago?

A cave in Kenya gives insight into technological innovation over millennia during the Pleistocene.

The onset of the Achuelean in East Africa is examined.

H. sapiens:

A modern human finger bone has been found in Saudi Arabia dating from over 85,000 years ago.

John Hawks looks back at the idea the Clovis Culture was the first one in the Americas.

The origin of fluted point technology in the ice free corridor in North America.

Long distance pigment trade and use in Mesolithic Africa.

The environmental conditions at the onset of the Mesolithic in Africa.

Variation in the temporal labyrinth as evidence of out of Africa.

Stone artifacts where recovered from Sulawesi, Indonesia dating from 65,000 years ago, suggesting modern humans arrived much earlier than previously thought.

Genomic research linked North African, subsaharan and Middle Eastern populations during the Late Pleistocene.

A recent paper argues a 5 meter long wooden sculpture from Siberia is from the twilight of the Pleistocene and the oldest known monumental art.

Symbolic emblems from the Middle East hint that the Levantine Aurignacian had a distinct, regional culture.

Modern Humans started making certain types of stone tools over ten thousand years earlier than previously thought.

The ability to focus on details led to a revolution in cave paintings.

Evidence of waves of immigrants into the Southeast Asia come from genetics.

How humans survived the Toba event.

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals actually had a rather unique nasal system and breathed primarily through their nose, even when breathing heavily.  Could that have been a cold weather adaptation?  After all, our noses help warm and moisten the air as it comes in.

Scientists are hoping to grow brain organoids using Neandertal DNA and observe differences between Neandertals and modern humans.

Neandertals might have have had Mediterranean maritime odysseys since their tools were found on the island of Crete.

How much insight do artifacts from Crimea give into Neandertal symbolism?

Differences between Neandertal and modern human mandibular ramus are considered.

The 'endocostal ossifications' of the K 2 Neandertal get reconsidered.

H. floresiensis:

The experiences of one of the discoverers of the Hobbit and John Hawks' amplification of that.

H. erectus:

KNM-WT 1500's weight has had important implications for understanding H. erectus growth.

KNM-ER 42700:

KNM-ER 42700 is NOT Homo erectus, but rather a different, unknown hominin species.

H. naledi:

Enamel growth on H. naledi's teeth gets considered.

The complexity of H. naledi's brain is examined.

Genus Australopithecus:

Modern human gait predates the genus Homo.

Human hip joint loading was present in A. africanus and P. robustus.

META:

Our understanding of hominin evolution is shaped by sampling bias.

Developed Olduwan A should be abandoned as a term since there is no difference between it and Olduwan.

A new hominin has been found circa 2 million years ago from Ethiopia. 

What we inherited from our insectivorous ancestors.

Paleolithic Papers #19

Genus Homo:

A British Columbian family found a hominin trackway dating from 90,000 years ago in South Africa.  This was certainly from the genus Homo and probably even H. sapiens.

Bone retouchers from circa 115,000 years ago were found in China.  John Hawks comments on them.

Paleolithic bone tools from northern China are examined.

A lower density of carnivores in Europe might have allowed hominins to thrive.

Almost immediately after the glaciers retreated in Germany, hominins moved in.

H. sapiens:

A Pleistocene Moroccan had its genetic ancestry traced to the Near East and Subsaharan Africa.

The Toba super eruption did not cause a volcanic winter in eastern Africa.

Modern humans seem to have been just fine in South Africa, too.

John Hawks takes a look at the Toba bottleneck.

Cheddar Man, the prehistoric individual found in Britain with modern descendants in the area had dark skin.  By modern standards, he was black.

Can micro amounts of flint in archaeological sites help indicate if there was flint knapping taking place?

Evidence of modern humans has been found that pushes back our species origin by tens of thousands of years.

Major climate and technological change abounded at the dawn of modern humans.

Footprints of human beings have been found off the coast of Canada dating to the Late Pleistocene.

H. neanderthalensis:

The oldest fire forged multi purpose tool dates from 170,000 years ago in Europe.

Brown Bears, Cave Bears and Neandertals were competitors in Pleistocene Europe.  It seems in some cases, Neandertals actually hunted the bears.

The complexity of Neandertal technology gets discussed.

The classic Neandertal La Ferrassie 1 gets a redescription and that includes new pathologies found.

Neandertals seem to have a rather different thorax than modern humans.

Could Neandertal's lack of drawing be related to how they hunted?  Probably mistaken.  See the next line.

The first cave art is probably Neandertal and predates known modern humans arriving in Europe by 20,000 years.  This suggests Neandertals thought like modern people do. (original paper)

The El Sidrón juvenile Neandertal reconstruction has led to some controversy.

Sima de los Huesos Hominin:

The SdlH hominin had legs more like Neandertals than early modern humans based on their cross section.  This would lend support to the idea the SdlH hominins are basal Neandertals or ancestral to Denisovans and Neandertals.

Denisovans:

It appears that Denisovans interbred with modern humans twice.

H. heidelbergensis:

The bite strength of H. heidelbergensis and H. sapiens is compared.

H. naledi:

New excavations are underway at the site where H. naledi was discovered.

The teeth of H. naledi are considered with their potential diet in mind.

META:

The paper "The revised stratigraphy of the hominin-bearing site of Kromdraai (Gauteng, South Africa) and associated perspectives " has been retracted by the editors of the journal.

The evolution of eccrine sweat glands in human lineage gets examined.

Hominid brain size grew over time.  John Hawks takes issue with the paper.  (and he also calls homo floresiensis by its name)

Were grass leaves a source of food for hominins?

Did hominins use stone tools to make nightly defensive shelters from Acacia trees?

Hominins risked ischemia when going bipedal.

Hip extensor mechanics and the evolution of walking upright.

Did Pleistocene hominins really bury their dead?