Linguist Carmel O'Shannessy wrote to the journal Language of a newly discovered language, Light Warlpiri. Her correspondence, "The role of multiple sources in the formation of an innovative auxiliary category in Light Warlpiri, a new Australian mixed language," documents 300 people in a remote desert community about 644 kilometres from Katherine, a town in Australia’s... Continue Reading →
Simulating The Social Brain Hypothesis
An Oxford University team of two led by Tamás Dávid-Barrett published an open access paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B testing the social brain hypothesis. In a nutshell, the social brain hypothesis was created by the other author of this paper, Robin Dunbar, who theorized in 1993 with anthropologist Leslie Aiello, that intelligence among humans is... Continue Reading →
What’s Wrong With Anthropology?
In December, I linked up Ann Gibbons' article in Science about anthropology's poor reception in the scientific community. I forgot to mention that months before that, in August, Kiplinger named anthropology "the worst major for your career." Two months later, Forbes followed suite and ranked "anthropology and archaeology," as the No. 1 on its list of "worst... Continue Reading →
Last Friday, Ivan Sprajc led a group of researchers to a site in Campeche, a province in the western Yucatán peninsula, that he initially identified via stereoscopic aerial photographs. He and his group found the ruins of an enormous 54 acre (22 hectares) city, full of artifacts. The city is named Chactún. Chactún was occupied during the Late... Continue Reading →
A 120,000 Year Old Neandertal from Krapina who had Fibrous Dysplasia
The internets are buzzing about the news of the earliest known bone tumor on record, predating others by more than 100,000 years. The tumor has been found on the left rib of a 120,000 year old Neandertal from Krapina, Croatia. The original paper is published under the title, "Fibrous Dysplasia in a 120,000+ Year Old Neandertal... Continue Reading →
