Greg Laden points to a paper by Ron Pinhasi and Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, courtesy of PLoS ONE and which is free to access - here's the abstract: Background The spread of agriculture into Europe and the ancestry of the first European farmers have been subjects of debate and controversy among geneticists, archaeologists, linguists and anthropologists.... Continue Reading →
KIAA0319 – A New Candidate Gene For Language
The current issue of the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders has published an open access paper announcing the discovery of a new candidate gene linked to language, KIAA0319. The paper is titled, "Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment." The gene sits on short... Continue Reading →
Four Stone Hearth 74 @ natures/cultures
The latest edition of the anthropology blog carnival is hosted this time round at a blog with which I was previously unfamiliar, namely natures/cultures (getting with the nature fetish), and I can confidently assert that once again we have a host who has assembled an excellent and eclectic selection of news and research from the... Continue Reading →
Hobbit in the Haystack: Homo floresiensis and Human Evolution – Watch it Online!
Speaking of the Johansons and fossils ... Earlier this year, I've blogged about the 2009 Human Evolution Leakey Symposium at Stony Brook that I went to. For more about that blog post, click here. The symposium, entitled "Hobbit in the Haystack: Homo floresiensis and Human Evolution" can now be streamed live through the Stony Brook... Continue Reading →
Climate Shaped the Worldwide Distribution of Human Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation – Proc. R. Soc. B
Here's the abstract to a newly published paper, the contents of which are free to access: There is an ongoing discussion in the literature on whether human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evolves neutrally. There have been previous claims for natural selection on human mtDNA based on an excess of non-synonymous mutations and higher evolutionary persistence of... Continue Reading →
Science Suffers From The Idiots At Scientific American
Scientific American recently published a spineless attack on the state of access to paleoanthropological specimens. They titled it, "Fossils for All: Science Suffers by Hoarding," and John Hawks lend it credibility with a nod in his post. Aside from being spineless, it reeks of ignorance and is tactless. In this post I'll be discussing why... Continue Reading →
Coastal Exploitation of Ancient Foragers
Here's the abstract of a recent paper by Torben C. Rick and Jon M. Erlandson: The development and spread of agriculture and pastoralism during the past 10,000 years is often seen as the tipping point when humans fundamentally changed our relationship with the natural world. Ancient hunter-gatherers also altered their environments, although the extent to... Continue Reading →
Earliest Known Human Figurine in Scotland Found at Westray, Orkney
News from Orkneyjar, which reports on a remarkable find by archaeologist Jakob Kainz, who recently discovered a carved sandstone representation of a round human face atop a lozenge-shaped body, as depicted here. Measuring 3 cm by 3.5 cm, this tiny artefact is apparently one of only three such items dating to the Neolithic ever found... Continue Reading →
Isotopic Evidence for the Diets of European Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans – PNAS
Here's a link to a recent paper published by Michael Richards and Erik Trinkaus, in which they propose that isotopic analyses of early modern human remains indicate a broader dietary range than Neanderthals, with the specific suggestion that European EMH supplemented their food intake with items such as freshwater fish, whilst European Neanderthals obtained almost... Continue Reading →
The Human Family Tree – National Geographic Channel
Link I'll be away from my desk for another week or so yet, but in the meantime here's a quick heads-up to a programme airing in the US on the National Geographic Channel, on Sunday August 30th at 9 pm ET/PT, of which this is a brief description from NGC: On a single day on... Continue Reading →
