Reprieve
A discussion of research, controversy and silliness in the field of human evolution
MY BLOGS
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EvoAnth
http://evoanth.wordpress.com/
A discussion of the latest research into human origins.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 510 )
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The Curious Case of the People Who Forgot How to Fish
Tasmania 14,000 years ago; when it was still connected to the Mainland. The dots are sites we know people lived in from this periodAround 30,000 years ago a... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Why Do Chimps Hunt?
A Savannah chimp eating a bush baby she caught with a spearChimps are the only species of great ape (except for us) that hunts and kills mammals. Sometimes... Read more
Posted on 13 April 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Oldest Case of Cancer in Humans
1.5 million years ago our ancestors were walking upright, hunting large game and creating fancy stone handaxes. They had a brain half the size we do today; and... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Religion Has Its Roots in Metaphor?
Sunghir is a 22,00 year old site where someone was buried in clothes made from thousands of beads, along with huge mammoth ivory spearsOur ancestors were buryin... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Origin of Language Is….laughter?
Today is April 1st, a good day to talk about laughter and how it may have been one of the most important forces in human evolution. Read more
Posted on 01 April 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Pushing Back the Origin of Meat Eating
Chimpanzees hunt and kill other animals, but it’s insignificant; only making up ~3% of their diet1. It seems seems to be more as a bonding activity than food,... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Brain is Shrinking but Our Frontal Lobe is Growing
Taung, the first Australopithecus discovered, had an endocast. Endocasts are moulds of brains created from the imprints on the inside of the skull; allowing us... Read more
Posted on 13 March 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Dmanisi Contains Two Human Species After All?
Last year Dmanisi, in Georgia, made headlines when a new fossil human skull (known as D4500, or skull 5 by people who want to have to remember less numbers)... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Creationist Ministries Present Distorted View of Human Evolution
A common creationist criticism is the lack of fossils of human ancestors (known as hominins). I wrote about it a few weeks back when dealing with the question... Read more
Posted on 03 March 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Old is Chimp Culture: Finding the Chimp Y-chromosomal Adam
Some of the chimp cultures currently identified, along with the behaviours practised by each (you’re probably going to want to click to see a bigger... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
12,000 Year Old Prehistoric Art Shows Woman Hunting
The notion of “man the hunter” has been one of the dominant views of hunter-gatherers since the 1960s, when a book and conference (appropriately enough called... Read more
Posted on 28 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Hands Are an Evolutionary Accident
The big difference is that foot bones are called tarsals but hand bones are called carpals.Our hands and legs are very similar, sharing many of the same bones... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
One Less Reason the Neanderthals Went Extinct
We lived side by side with the Neanderthals for tens of thousands of years; before the ultimately went extinct. For years palaeoanthropologists have been asking... Read more
Posted on 11 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
There’s More Than One Lucy: Responding to Buzzfeed’s Creationists
Last week Bill Nye and Ken Ham (of Answers in Genesis) had themselves a little debate over whether or not creationism was a viable scientific model. Read more
Posted on 10 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Panthropology Reveals 4,300 Year Old Chimp Site
Panda 100 is an archaeological site like any other. 4 kilograms of rock were excavated, baring traces of having been used as tools to crack nuts and a series... Read more
Posted on 09 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A 13,530 Year Old Stone Age Map
The cave of Abauntz in Spain has a long history. It was first inhabited by Neanderthals, who were replaced by stone age humans. Even some Bronze Age people live... Read more
Posted on 07 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Hand is Still Evolving
Our muscles can vary a lot from person to person, in terms of size, shape, structure. Some people even have muscles that are completely missing in others! Read more
Posted on 06 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Book and Blog Recommendations
This weeks question comes from Matthew, who want to know if I could recommend any books about evolution. Specifically, something for the bigger, the... Read more
Posted on 05 February 2014 BIOLOGY, BOOKS, CULTURE, SCIENCE -
Neanderthal Genes Harmed Humans
Tens of thousands of years ago modern humans got frisky with our cousins, the Neanderthals. We inherited several genes from this rendezvous, some of which prove... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE -
AiG & ICR Double Down on “gorillas Have Human Feet”
Last week I wrote about the Institute for Creation Research’s (ICR) discussion of a recently discovered human foot bone. The bone resembled that of modern... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2014 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE