#palaeoanthropology — Public Fediverse posts

Happy 84th birthday to #MeaveLeakey! Read all about her in Sediments of Time, an inspiring autobiography full of scientific detail where she reflects on a fulfilling career in #Palaeoanthropology

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/03/10/book-review-the-sediments-of-time-my-lifelong-search-for-the-past/

#Books #BookReview #Scicomm #Palaeontology #Paleontology #Palaeoanthropology

RE: https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/116810427514777718

paper on the all-female Homo naledi burial is here (open access): https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00644-6
#science #humans #anthropology #palaeoanthropology

146,000-Year-Old Discovery Rewrites the Story of Human Creativity

Crystals growing inside a bone found at the Lingjing archaeological site; these crystals were used to date the…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Science #Anthropology #archaeology #FieldMuseum #hominin #Palaeoanthropology
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/660576/

26-Nov-2025
New research by ASU paleoanthropologists gives valuable insight into how two ancient human ancestors coexisted in the same area
They assign a #hominin foot #fossil from #Lucy’s time to a different species – with help from teeth

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1107105

#science #palaeoanthropology #humanEvolution

15-Oct-2025
Did lead (#Pb) limit #brain and #language #development in #Neanderthals
and other extinct hominids?
Ancient human relatives were exposed to lead up to two million years ago, according to a new study. However, a #gene #mutation may have protected modern human brains, allowing language to flourish.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1102068

#science #palaeoanthropology #genome

8-Oct-2025
Early #humans butchered #elephants using small tools and made big tools from their bones
Multiple sites in central Italy show consistent strategy during warm parts of the #MiddlePleistocene
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1100481

See also my feature on the long suffering of elephants:
https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-long-history-of-elephants-suffering.html

#science #anthropology #palaeoanthropology #ecology #hunting #megafauna

Yesterday's feature in #CurrentBiology is about #Denisovans. Exciting stuff is happening in that field as several #ossils including the #Harbin skull have been identified as Denisovan with molecular methods. https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-denisovan-skull.html
#science #palaeoanthropology

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 19: A #Denisovan skull identified this year reveals the face of our close relatives (comparable to #Neanderthals). https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-denisovan-skull.html #science #anthropology #fossils #humans #genome #palaeoanthropology #china

Candidate #Denisovan #fossils identified through gene regulatory phenotyping

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2513968122

#science #palaeoAnthropology #humans #genome

Happy 83rd birthday to #MeaveLeakey! Read all about her in Sediments of Time, an inspiring autobiography full of scientific detail where she reflects on a fulfilling career in #Palaeoanthropology

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/03/10/book-review-the-sediments-of-time-my-lifelong-search-for-the-past/

#Books #BookReview #Scicomm #Palaeontology #Paleontology #Palaeoanthropology

18-Jun-2025
Research confirms that a nearly complete #hominin skull discovered near Harbin belongs to the #Denisovan lineage. It dates back to at least 146,000 years ago.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1087905

#science #anthropology #palaeoAnthropology #humans #fossils

#palaeoanthropology #science #Toumaï

"Palaeoanthropology is a notoriously disputatious, not to say vicious, field. In part, this is an effect of self-selection: given its prestige, and its philosophical, even metaphysical implications, the study of human prehistory attracts the most ambitious and, as one member of the discipline put it to me, 'the most psychotic', palaeontologists. There is, additionally, a cultural divide within the field between, speaking very broadly, field workers and laboratory specialists. The former disdain the latter as 'armchair palaeontologists'; the latter disdain the former as 'fossil hunters'.

But most of the fighting in palaeoanthropology is simply a function of the wild imbalance between the number of palaeoanthropologists, which is large, and the number of objects available for them to study, which is very much not. Our direct knowledge of the first few million years of human evolution derives from a collection of bone fragments that could no more than halfway fill a large shoebox. 'It’s a bit frustrating,' the researcher Jean-Jacques Jaeger told me, with some understatement, 'but there really is a gap in the palaeontological record between, I’d say, 14m and 5m years ago in Africa.' Among other things, the tectonics of this period were not conducive to fossil formation. Unfortunately, this period is precisely when the human line began."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/27/the-curse-of-toumai-ancient-skull-disputed-femur-feud-humanity-origins

#Archaeology #Palaeoanthropology The earliest human face of Western Europe found at Sima del Elefante site, #Atapuerca, #Spain. Older than #antecessor and more primitive, but different from #erectus, though closer to it. Study english: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08681-0
Article german: https://www.scinexx.de/news/archaeologie/fossil-enthuellt-gesicht-der-ersten-europaeer/

Happy 82nd birthday to Meave Leakey! Read all about her in Sediments of Time, an inspiring autobiography full of scientific detail where she reflects on a fulfilling career in #Palaeoanthropology

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/03/10/book-review-the-sediments-of-time-my-lifelong-search-for-the-past/

#Books #BookReview #Scicomm #Palaeontology #Paleontology #Palaeoanthropology

@ancientsounds promptedme to reaad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language.
#palaeoanthropology

@inarticulatequilter

I can't help, but for more visibility I'll add the alternative spellings of #palaeontology and #palaeoanthropology in case somebody's following either of those tags and can help you.

Here's a great postdoc opportunity to work with Agustin Fuentes and Lee Berger on the emerging data from Rising Star and Homo Naledi
https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=28761
#HomoNaledi #anthropology #palaeoanthropology

The rise of scientific racism in #palaeoanthropology

'In Bones and Bodies, Alan Morris lays bare how #anthropologists built a ‘scientific’ justification for the low status they afforded peoples of #African descent and how this justification became part of a systematic effort to ensure African peoples’ disenfranchisement.'

🔗https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03700-w?fbclid=IwAR0qiR3E7hHSNfzgOFFjb7DtMJbC9OhK5lgniwEQbaxIsdGnKn5T86NwWuI

#Neanderthal #genes increase risk of serious #Covid-19, study claims | #Science | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/30/neanderthal-genes-increase-risk-of-serious-covid-19-study-claims

#Coronavirus #Pandemic #Biology #Zoology #Anthropology #Genetics #Palaeoanthropology #Archaeology