Beyond bones & stones
A couple days ago Science published a peopling of the Americas paper. The paper is based on ancient mtDNA analysis of hair from a site in Greenland called, Saqqaq, also known as Qeqertasussuk, Disko Bay. The authors were able to identify a unique haplogroup, not shared by other Native Americans, which suggests that a different... Continue Reading →
I don't know how I missed this paper, "Stand and shuffle: When does it make energetic sense?" It was published last month in the Journal of Physical Anthropology. I'm sharing it with you now because the bipedalism is heavily studied in anthropology. Bipedal locomotion is perhaps one of only traits that is predominately 'human.' The... Continue Reading →
Survival International, the non-profit organization that helps tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures has released new aerial photos of uncontacted peoples at the border of Brazil and Peru. The photographs are remarkable, the people are depicted shooting at the aircraft with arrows and throwing stones. You may have... Continue Reading →
Michael Tomasello, a well known comparative psychologist, has a column in today's New York Times where he writes on, "How Are Humans Unique?" In the piece, Tomasello argues that our cultural, linguistic, economic and tool-use have all come about because of our tendency for "collective cognition." His argument stems from two of his recent papers,... Continue Reading →
Today's big anthropological headline is based upon this brand new open access PLoS One paper, "Evidence of Authentic DNA from Danish Viking Age Skeletons Untouched by Humans for 1,000 Years." The paper is written well, has lots of controls, and establishes some protocols on how to recovery ancient DNA. Despite these good things, I think... Continue Reading →
About 9 months ago, I shared some news of language extinction and the conservation efforts of K. David Harrison and David Anderson. My coverage was far from a thorough treatment of the subject, partially because I know little about the problem and the ways to remedy it. Fast forward to today, where I come across... Continue Reading →
An new article in press, to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution will announce new hominin remains from Uzbekistan. The remains were actually found five years ago, and are the first hominin findings from the country in over 65 years! The remains were discovered in two Middle Paleolithic sites, the Obi-Rakhmat Grotto and... Continue Reading →
PLoS Genetics has published a new population genetics paper. It summarizes the order by which the world was peopled through the use of a new statistical model. This has been a big question in anthropology, and has often relied on archaeology, linguistics, and ethnography to supplement the genetic and physical data. I don't mean to... Continue Reading →
Today is Anthropology.net's one year anniversary on WordPress.com. I've been running this blog for more than one year but I decided to scrap some of the old site because of technical difficulties. It was a bittersweet decision. Initially, Anthropology.net lost a lot of readership. All the inbound links were broken, and that dropped the site's... Continue Reading →
Tomorrow, the next installment in the Indiana Jones series of films is set to come out. The film is subtitled, "and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I'm extremely excited. As a child, I really enjoyed the other three movies. My favorite was "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." I've been eagerly anticipating this... Continue Reading →
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