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 #31

Genus Homo:

Apparently, there has been selection against the archaic components of the genome when interbreeding hast taken place between modern humans and other hominin species.   

Could cooking have shaped our evolution for the last 2 million years?

More articles about the two previously undetected hominin relatives people seem to have interbred with.

Rock art requires a relatively high density demographic.

Modern Humanity (H. sapiens):

Tetrapod Zoology goes into five "mysterious" cave paintings.

Two Patagonian volcanic caves have evidence of people for the last 19,000 years.

Late Pleistocene fossils of modern humans have been found across the Wallace Line.

Mesolithic fire pits from the Netherlands get studied.

Modern humans occupied the Ethiopian highlands sometime between 31 kya to 47 kya.

An infant burial was found from Late Pleistocene Morocco. 

Human presence evidence from the Upper Paleolithic of Joran.

Ancient tools suggest modern humans spread across Eurasia earlier than previously thought.

Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis):

Studying Neandertal brains may give insights to modern human brain evolution.

The virtual reconstruction of the Apidima-2 skull.

The paleogenetic analysis of the Gibraltar Neandertals shows two different populations separated by time.

Half of Neandertals suffered from surfers ear, strongly implying they spent a lot of time in the water gathering food.

A Neandertal tooth was found in the Zagros Mountains.

Denisovans:

Could the 3 rooted second molar in the first Denisovan mandible be morphological evidence of introgression into modern populations?

Did Denisovans intentionally carve and paint this rock?

Denisovans are starting to come into the paleoanthropological light.

Hobbits (H. floresiensis):

Meet the hobbits of Indonesia.

H. erectus:

The Koobi Fora site in Kenya gets more support for being evidence of early use of fire.

H. naledi:

Meet Homo naledi.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. africanus mothers appear to have nursed their children for at least a year.

Authors of a new paper are arguing StW 573's skull shows it to be a different species than A. africanus.

META:

Hominin fossils seem to indicate early human species had teeth development similar to modern humans.

A single gene mutation 2 million years ago might explain why humans are prone to heart attacks.

There were significant environmental changes in the Middle Pleistocene in Europe.

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 #30

Genus Homo:

Using archaeomegnetism to investigate Late Paleolithic cave occupation in Israel.

Residents of the Qesem Cave in Israel from 400,000 years ago recycled stone tools.

The characteristics of the Manot Cave in Israel gets examined.

H. sapiens:

Ancient alcohol was found in Israel from before the end of the Pleistocene.

How diverse were the cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in the Zagros Mountains of Iran?

There appears to have been an unknown population in modern day Oman during the Pleistocene.

What was the environment like in southern Levant during the last glacial cycle?

Modern humans may have dispersed through Asia in the Late Pleistocene through multiple routes.

A new population of ancient siberians from 31kya has been found.

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals seem to have split from modern humans further back in time than the genes suggest.

The ancestors of Neandertals and Denisovans interbred with yet another ancient hominin population before they mixed it up with modern humans.

A jaw from a Neandertal from Regourdou, France shows the individual ate what appears to be typical foods for human hunter gatherers in a temperate forest based on the microwear analysis.

An odd preprint paper questions whether or not the introgression of Neandertals into modern humans was as much as previously thought.

H. erectus:

A new site at Madigou in China dates from 1.2 million years ago and contains stone tools.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. anamensis:

The verbatral morphology of A. anamensis appears to be more derived than A. afarensis.

A. afarensis:

The comparison of diets of pigs from Africa and australopithecines is examined and conclusions hominin diet diversification had not happened by the end of A. afarensis.

META:

The first metacarpal gets compared between different hominins and Great Apes.

Did our ancestor's ability to ingest alcohol lead to the evolution of people?  So wonders the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis.

A gene has been found that helps humans deal with high sugar diets.

Modern humans might be unique in our hearing capabilities.

Western Galilee's environment from the Late Middle and Upper Pleistocene gets examined.

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 #24

Genus Homo:

H. sapiens:

A cave in Libya has show evidence of grinding stones used on seeds from the Late Pleistocene, 31 kya.

We know ancient humans believed in an afterlife.

A new bone knife is the oldest specialized artifact from the Aterian culture, 90,000 years ago.

A technological/cultural transition that took place in South Africa was definitely not linked to climate change.

The Friedkin site in Texas has yielded more pre Clovis projectile points from approximately 15.5kya.

Are the reports of H. sapiens outside of Africa ~200kya due to flawed interpretation of the dating data?

Genetic studies of Africa are giving light to ancient human population evolution there during the Pleistocene.

H. neanderthalensis:

A large part of the DNA left to modern humans from interbreeding with Neandertals is related to fighting off viruses.

Neandertals practiced their own form of health care and it was crucial to their survival.

Modeling the disappearance of Neandertals through population dynamics.

A Neandertal child in Poland from 42 kya was eaten by a large bird.

H. antecessor:

Homo antecessor had already evolved Neandertal-type teeth 450,000 years ago.

H. erectus:

The variation in the Acheulean stone tools is examined.

How many different grips were used on the lower Paleolithic hand axes?

META:

Did the ancient climate affect human evolution?

The difference between chimpanzee and human upright walking related to trunk sizes.

A geometric morphometric examination of hominoid third metacarpal shape and its implications for inferring the precursor to terrestrial bipedalism.

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 #18

Genus Homo:

Stone tools found in Attirampakkam, India push back the first occurrence of Levallois style stone tools.  200,000 years earlier than the previous occurrence.

John Hawks speculates about the potential for mitochondrial DNA introgression.

How to screw up stone tools.

H. sapiens:

The Indonesian island of Kisar is unusually rich in cave paintings.

It now appears that modern humans dispersed out of Africa multiple times prior to 60,000 years ago.

Humanity might be at its peak potential physically.

There is a bunfight over how to interpret South African mesolithic sites.

How deep into the Pleistocene did modern humans live in Indonesia?

The Out of Africa model is getting challenged again.

The Americas were peopled in one wave, by and large, for so implied by the genome of a 11,500 child found in Alaska from a new population from Holocene/Pleistocene Boundary Alaska.

Scandinavia was populated through two migrations at the end of the ice age.

A new jaw found in Israel of what appears to be a modern human pushes back the oldest date modern human remains have been found outside of Africa.  John Hawks has his own take.

At least four distinct populations of humans were present in Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene.

Archaeologists have reconstructed post ice age spear points from Holocene Boundary Alaska.

A Mesolithic 'crayon' may have been recovered from England.

The Bonn-Oberkassel dog found buried with two modern humans was very ill from distemper and would have required extensive care that would have made it useless as a helper or hunter for some time before its death.

H. neanderthalensis:

Were the Neandertals stymied by the glacial lakes of Siberia?

Neandertals appear to have collected hunting trophies.

Did the Neandertal home range get fragmented into smaller pockets due to climate change?

H. erectus:

Inner tooth morphology from the H. erectus finds of Zhoukoudian.

H. habilis:

Where OH24 and OH56 were found.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. africanus:

Little Foot has been prepared and shared with the world.

Genus Sahelanthropus:

John Hawks points out something weird is afoot with the Sahelanthropus femur.

META:

Human evolution has been uneven, punctuated.

A hypothesis has been proposed for the evolution of the digital sesamoids in the hominin line.

Taking a look at the materials of stone tools and their performance.

Lessons learned from the Piltdown doubters.

How hominins procured the raw materials for stone tools in the Lower Pleistocene.

Estimating body masses in hominins.

When did pair bonding become a thing in hominins?

Paleolithic Papers #16

Genus Homo:

H. sapiens (modern humanity):

Humans are still evolving.

Did modern humans leave Africa to attempt to escape a drying climate?

Facial phenotypes support a multiple dispersal for modern humans.

Modern human spit contains some surprises about our hominin ancestry.

It appears settling down and abandoning, or at least reducing the nomadic life style, allowed technology to start developing faster 64,000 years ago.

Some of the mutations associated with white skin have an African origin.

Did Paleolithic humans realize the dangers of inbreeding and have breeding networks?

A child from 2,000 years ago in south africa gives hints that modern humans originated 300k years ago.

Rock art in Australia appears to show the extinct giant bird Genyornis.

H. neanderthalensis (Neandertals):

DNA analysis of different Neandertal populations advances our understanding of hominin evolution.  (psst, the Altai Neandertals were the hillbillies of their world).

DNA analysis also suggests a higher percentage of Neandertal DNA survives in modern populations.

Neandertals appeared to grow at a similar rate as modern humans.

How thick was the enamel of the Neandertal canine teeth?

Were Neandertals distilling and using tar?

Neandertal City aka Gibraltar, gets profiled.

Rethinking the Upper Paleolithic Transition in Grotte Mandrin.

What was the mechanism that caused the Neandertals to go extinct and be replaced by modern humans?

What traits are tied to the introgression of Neandertal genes into the modern Human line?

H. georgicus:

The Georgian hominins from Dzudzuana and Satsurblia caves are described.

H. erectus:

A trackway from H. erectus in Kenya is studied.

Genus Paranthropus:

P. bosei:

The probable source of herpes has been claimed: Paranthropus bosei.  Yes, friends, one human ancestor couldn't keep it zipped.  I'm looking at you, H. erectus.  Like we REALLY believe the watering hole story, Upright Man.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. anamensis:

Where did A. anamensis live?  What sort of environment was it?

META:

The fossils trackways from the Greek hominin from 5.7 million years ago are in danger.

How facial features have evolved in hominins through time.

Chimps can learn to use tools without being taught.

Savannah living chimps don't seem to eat more meat than their forest cousins.

The rest of their dietary comparison is here.

Tool using macaques are wiping out shellfish populations.

Was bipedality in hominins a by-product of developmental processes?

The differences in loading on the 3rd metacarpal heads in humans and chimpanzees.

Paleolithic Papers #11

Genus Homo:

Genital Warts are from interactions, ahem, between modern humans and Neandertals.

H. sapiens:

There is evidence of learning in the Magdalenian culture.

Modern humans may have hunted cave lions for their pelts.

Modern humans also recognize snakes far better than other animals when they are partially obscured.

Mesolithic cultures in Ethiopia may have used several methods to create ochre.

How Mesolithic cultures used small mammals.

How early Homo might have used tubers for food.

Evidence of early modern human tools from East Timor from 42,000 years ago?

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertal genes may have helped modern humans adapt to life outside of Africa.

However, many Neandertal genes have been very actively selected against.

H. erectus:

Researchers looked at the cranial vaults of non human primates to try to explain the hypertrophied skull in H. erectus.

H. naledi:

Based on skull shape, H. naledi may be closely related to Homo erectus.

The upper limb, skull and thigh/leg of H. naledi get described.

Genus Paranthropus:

Paranthropus species may have eaten a softer diet than previously thought.

 

META:

Comparing the isotopes found in modern ape and monkey population teeth gives insight into past homin diets.

John Hawks discusses the monkey creation of stone flakes.

Paleolithic Papers #8

Genus Homo:

How China's hominin fossils are rewriting what we know about human evolution.

Robustness in limb bones can effect when we think Pleistocene and Holocene hominins died.

Modern humans are the ultimate super predator.

Modern Humanity (Homo sapiens):

Cultural and technological change was not driven by climate change for humanity.

Human cultural paleodiversity gets examined.

The impact of humans on the environment since the Pleistocene.


Neandertals (Homo neanderthalensis):

The first evidence of cannibalism in Neandertals has been found.

Paranasal sinuses are a bad sign of climate adaptation.

Neandertal brain development was similar to modern humans.

Hobbits (Homo floresiensis):

Evidence of fire in Indonesia's home of the Hobbits dates from 41,000 years ago. Is this a sign of modern humans on the island? or...?  (paper link)

Homo erectus:

H. eretus walked like modern humans.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. africanus:

A. africanus feet were not like modern human or ape feet.

An A. africanus pelvis was reconstructed with an eye to both locomotion and obstetrics. 

META:

Variation in bones for populations needs to be taken into account for fossil hominins.

Viruses have greatly influenced human evolution.

Paleolithic Papers #7

Genus Homo:

There seems to have been a dietary shift in the evolution of the genus Homo from Australopithecus.

A decorated Nautilus shell from 42,000 years ago from Indonesia has been found.

Modern Humans (Homo sapiens):

Tracking the stone tools across the Kalahari during the Mesolithic.

What does the 'Still Bay' Mesolithic stone tools imply for human demographics?

What does cut mark evidence mean for Late Pleistocene societies?

Where is the evidence of women and children in the Stone age?

The argument for coastal foraging being important for early modern humans gets revisited.

The 'Deep Skull' from Pleistocene South East Asia has revealed some surprises. For example, the person its from is not related to Australian Aborigines. 

Sima de los Huesos hominin:

The Sima de los Huesos hominin probably died violently.

Hobbits (Homo floresiensis):

John Hawks talks about the recent discovery of ancestors of Hobbit ancestors.

Homo erectus:

Visiting the site of the oldest known hominins outside of Africa in Georgia.

Homo naledi:

The academic bun fight over whether or not the bodies of H naledi were placed deliberately continues.

John Hawks weighs in on the bun fight and defends the idea the bodies were placed intentionally.  He also gives a recap of a seminar on the latest on H. naledi.

The phylogenetic position of H. naledi is explored.

Genus Australopithecus:

The implications of the paleoecology and their impacts on the evolution of australopithecines.

Australopithecus afarensis:

Lucy's feet are consistent with the Laetoli footprints.