#paleoanthropology — Public Fediverse posts

Why are ~90% of humans right-handed? New phylogenetic analysis of 41 primate species finds the answer likely traces to bipedalism and brain expansion, not tool use. The hominin fossil record shows a two-stage story. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Primatology https://www.anthropology.net/p/why-humans-are-right-handed-walking

Why are ~90% of humans right-handed? New phylogenetic analysis of 41 primate species finds the answer likely traces to bipedalism and brain expansion, not tool use. The hominin fossil record shows a two-stage story. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Primatology https://www.anthropology.net/p/why-humans-are-right-handed-walking

Why are ~90% of humans right-handed? New phylogenetic analysis of 41 primate species finds the answer likely traces to bipedalism and brain expansion, not tool use. The hominin fossil record shows a two-stage story. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Primatology https://www.anthropology.net/p/why-humans-are-right-handed-walking

Why are ~90% of humans right-handed? New phylogenetic analysis of 41 primate species finds the answer likely traces to bipedalism and brain expansion, not tool use. The hominin fossil record shows a two-stage story. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Primatology https://www.anthropology.net/p/why-humans-are-right-handed-walking

Why are ~90% of humans right-handed? New phylogenetic analysis of 41 primate species finds the answer likely traces to bipedalism and brain expansion, not tool use. The hominin fossil record shows a two-stage story. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Primatology https://www.anthropology.net/p/why-humans-are-right-handed-walking

Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.

Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ijqzs

#anthropology #archaeology #bioarchaeology #neanderthals #osteoarchaeology #paleoanthropology #science #teeth
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/neanderthals-drilled-cavities-to-treat-a-toothache-59000-years-ago/

Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.

Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ijqzs

#anthropology #archaeology #bioarchaeology #neanderthals #osteoarchaeology #paleoanthropology #science #teeth
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/neanderthals-drilled-cavities-to-treat-a-toothache-59000-years-ago/

Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.

Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ijqzs

#anthropology #archaeology #bioarchaeology #neanderthals #osteoarchaeology #paleoanthropology #science #teeth
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/neanderthals-drilled-cavities-to-treat-a-toothache-59000-years-ago/

Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.

Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ijqzs

#anthropology #archaeology #bioarchaeology #neanderthals #osteoarchaeology #paleoanthropology #science #teeth
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/neanderthals-drilled-cavities-to-treat-a-toothache-59000-years-ago/

Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

“Every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,” researcher says.

Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ijqzs

#anthropology #archaeology #bioarchaeology #neanderthals #osteoarchaeology #paleoanthropology #science #teeth
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/neanderthals-drilled-cavities-to-treat-a-toothache-59000-years-ago/

A new Pleistocene container database finds 739 examples, including a bark tray from Zambia ~500,000 years old. The real total is likely millions — most were organic and are simply gone. #Paleoanthropology #Archaeology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-bag-before-the-bowl-pleistocene

Yowser! Root canal with stone tools? That had to hurt.
😧
#Neanderthals #dental #rootcanal #paleoanthropology
https://www.wsj.com/science/archaeology/neanderthals-tooth-root-canal-dentist-study-dfa8a037?st=9fQBF6

A Neanderthal got a tooth drilled 59,000 years ago — with a jasper perforator, no anesthetic, and it worked. New research from Chagyrskaya Cave just rewrote the history of dentistry. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Dentistry #Tooth https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-neanderthal-had-a-tooth-drilled

A Neanderthal got a tooth drilled 59,000 years ago — with a jasper perforator, no anesthetic, and it worked. New research from Chagyrskaya Cave just rewrote the history of dentistry. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Dentistry #Tooth https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-neanderthal-had-a-tooth-drilled

A Neanderthal got a tooth drilled 59,000 years ago — with a jasper perforator, no anesthetic, and it worked. New research from Chagyrskaya Cave just rewrote the history of dentistry. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Dentistry #Tooth https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-neanderthal-had-a-tooth-drilled

A Neanderthal got a tooth drilled 59,000 years ago — with a jasper perforator, no anesthetic, and it worked. New research from Chagyrskaya Cave just rewrote the history of dentistry. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Dentistry #Tooth https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-neanderthal-had-a-tooth-drilled

A Neanderthal got a tooth drilled 59,000 years ago — with a jasper perforator, no anesthetic, and it worked. New research from Chagyrskaya Cave just rewrote the history of dentistry. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Dentistry #Tooth https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-neanderthal-had-a-tooth-drilled

New @Nature study recovers proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth in China -- and finds a variant shared with Denisovans, who later passed it to people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some of us carry a trace of H. erectus. #Paleoanthropology #AncientDNA #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-homo-erectus-teeth-from-three

New @Nature study recovers proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth in China -- and finds a variant shared with Denisovans, who later passed it to people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some of us carry a trace of H. erectus. #Paleoanthropology #AncientDNA #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-homo-erectus-teeth-from-three

New @Nature study recovers proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth in China -- and finds a variant shared with Denisovans, who later passed it to people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some of us carry a trace of H. erectus. #Paleoanthropology #AncientDNA #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-homo-erectus-teeth-from-three

New @Nature study recovers proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth in China -- and finds a variant shared with Denisovans, who later passed it to people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some of us carry a trace of H. erectus. #Paleoanthropology #AncientDNA #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-homo-erectus-teeth-from-three

New @Nature study recovers proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth in China -- and finds a variant shared with Denisovans, who later passed it to people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some of us carry a trace of H. erectus. #Paleoanthropology #AncientDNA #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-homo-erectus-teeth-from-three

Cut marks on 1.6-million-year-old leg bones from Koobi Fora reveal early Homo was selectively transporting and intensively processing carcasses — a consistent strategy sustained across half a million years of shifting environments. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Zooarchaeology https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-16-million-year-old-leg-bones

Neanderthals weren’t just eating rhinos. New research shows they kept the teeth and used them as hammers and anvils during stone tool production. Controlled experiments and microscopic analysis make the case. #Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #MiddlePaleolithic https://www.anthropology.net/p/rhinoceros-teeth-as-neanderthal-tools

Neanderthals weren’t just eating rhinos. New research shows they kept the teeth and used them as hammers and anvils during stone tool production. Controlled experiments and microscopic analysis make the case. #Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #MiddlePaleolithic https://www.anthropology.net/p/rhinoceros-teeth-as-neanderthal-tools

Neanderthals weren’t just eating rhinos. New research shows they kept the teeth and used them as hammers and anvils during stone tool production. Controlled experiments and microscopic analysis make the case. #Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #MiddlePaleolithic https://www.anthropology.net/p/rhinoceros-teeth-as-neanderthal-tools

Soil temp, not just rainfall, may have driven the shifting geography of millet farming in Neolithic East Asia. A 3°C mid-Holocene cooling compressed cultivation zones and pushed farming southward. #Neolithic #Archaeobotany #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ground-went-cold-soil-temperature

Soil temp, not just rainfall, may have driven the shifting geography of millet farming in Neolithic East Asia. A 3°C mid-Holocene cooling compressed cultivation zones and pushed farming southward. #Neolithic #Archaeobotany #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ground-went-cold-soil-temperature

Soil temp, not just rainfall, may have driven the shifting geography of millet farming in Neolithic East Asia. A 3°C mid-Holocene cooling compressed cultivation zones and pushed farming southward. #Neolithic #Archaeobotany #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ground-went-cold-soil-temperature

Soil temp, not just rainfall, may have driven the shifting geography of millet farming in Neolithic East Asia. A 3°C mid-Holocene cooling compressed cultivation zones and pushed farming southward. #Neolithic #Archaeobotany #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ground-went-cold-soil-temperature

Soil temp, not just rainfall, may have driven the shifting geography of millet farming in Neolithic East Asia. A 3°C mid-Holocene cooling compressed cultivation zones and pushed farming southward. #Neolithic #Archaeobotany #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ground-went-cold-soil-temperature

New uranium-thorium dates from a deer rib place China’s Lingjing site 20,000 years deeper in time, squarely in an ice age. The sophisticated stone tools found there weren’t made during good times. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #StoneAge https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-crystals-in-the-bone-changed

Stone tools from a 1981 excavation in Arnhem Land turn out to be the world’s oldest known intentionally heat-treated chert — nearly twice as old as comparable evidence from Europe or East Asia. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-worlds-oldest-heat-treated-chert

Two children buried on the Patagonian coast ~10,500 years ago are now the oldest human burials in the region — and they were eating seafood. The Atlantic route into South America just got a lot more interesting. #Archaeology #Paleoanthropology #HumanOrigins https://www.anthropology.net/p/two-children-under-the-beach-ridge

New study: Neanderthal brain differences from modern humans are smaller than the variation between two living human populations today. The cognitive inferiority argument doesn’t survive the math. #Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-measure-of-a-neanderthal-mind

New research maps Neanderthal and Homo sapiens habitats across Europe 60,000–34,000 yrs ago. The habitat was fine. What differed was how well each group’s territories were connected to each other — and that may have made all the difference. #Neanderthals #HumanEvolution #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-network-problem-what-spatial

New research: less than 0.1% of the human genome predicts spoken language ability better than all the rest combined. And Neanderthals may have carried more of it than living humans do. #HumanEvolution #Genetics #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ancient-switches-behind-human

Malaria shaped where our ancestors could live across Africa for 74,000 years — long before farming, long before cities. A new model maps the ancient geography of avoidance. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Malaria https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-geography-of-avoidance-malaria

Cave bears dominated bone counts at a Galician Paleolithic cave, but ZooMS shows they mostly denned and died there. Horse was a major prey animal. Collagen told a different story. #Paleoanthropology #Zooarchaeology #Neanderthals https://www.anthropology.net/p/what-the-bear-teeth-were-hiding-zooms

Kabua 1: a Kenyan fossil found in the 1950s, with archaic vault walls and a distinctly modern chin, now dated to at least 64,000 years. New morphometric analysis places it within H. sapiens, mostly. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #LatePleistocene @katharv.bsky.social @chrisbstringer.bsky.social @hugoreyes.bsky.social https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-kabua-1-skull-what-a-long-neglected

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-group-in-a-polish-cave-and

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-group-in-a-polish-cave-and

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-group-in-a-polish-cave-and

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-group-in-a-polish-cave-and

At least 7 Neanderthals from one Polish cave, ~100,000 years old — some possibly related. Their mitochondrial DNA links them to a lineage once spread from France to the Caucasus. #Neanderthals #AncientDNA #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-small-group-in-a-polish-cave-and

Humans May Be Far Older Than We Thought - New Scientists
#anthropology #evolution #paleoanthropology #biology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjH7wqms9g

Was “behavioral modernity” ever a useful concept — or just a convenient label we’re ready to retire? New work argues Neanderthal evidence has made the concept unworkable. 🧠 #Neanderthals #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/its-time-to-retire-behavioral-modernity

A teenager buried in Qing dynasty China had an untreated cleft lip and palate. No malnutrition. A family tomb. Standard grave goods. The first case of its kind identified archaeologically in China. #Bioarchaeology #QingDynasty #Paleoanthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-face-that-didnt-heal

A Neanderthal infant’s bones and teeth don’t agree on its age. The gap between them reveals something fundamental about how Neanderthals developed. New research in Current Biology. #Neanderthal #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-neanderthal-infant-whose-bones

780,000-year-old charcoal from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov reveals that early hominins may have chosen their campsites partly for firewood access. Even the wood they burned tells us how they read their landscape. #Paleoanthropology #Acheulian #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-wood-they-burned-firewood-driftwood