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How DID Lucy Walk?
May 7, 2008
“Lucy” is the three million year old fossil discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1974 by Don Johanson. For more than three decades this remarkable find, which has told us so much about out origins, has been the subject of controversy. A forty percent complete skeleton, many of her large bones had been preserved through fossilization and from these, and in particular the femur (thigh bone) and pelvis, we know she stood upright and moved about on two legs and it was claimed she walked in the same manner as humans today: a straight legged stride, knees extended, posture upright. But not everyone agrees. Other researchers noted some critical bones were missing or shaped slightly differently than the same bones in humans today and from this they concluded Lucy walked with bent knees and her upper body bent forward slightly at the hips.
ONE WAY IN WHICH SCIENCE IS DONE
April 19, 2008
Science is done in many ways. The branch of science with which we are concerned – paleoanthropology, or the study of human origins – is performed by research in the field and in the lab; writing papers based on that research; teaching; and meeting as often as possible with colleagues engaged in the same and related fields of study, to exchange ideas and discuss possible avenues for joint research. Formal meetings take place periodically in the form of professional conferences; the most recent of these was held April 9-12, 2008 in Columbus, Ohio, the 77th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
The Knee Joint From Hadar
January 23, 2008
Significant fossils overtshadowed by the discovery of Lucy a year later, were found in 1973 that shed a brilliant light on human origins. Listen to a podcast at here and learn more. If that URL is unresponsive, copy and paste it into your browser.
Footprint Trail in Peril
January 10, 2008
A trail of footprints left in volcanic ash nearly four million years ago, corroborating the contention that Lucy was a biped, is threatened by both man made and natural damage in Tanzania, it was declared recently at a scientific symposium in South Korea.
What explains accelerated genetic evolution in human lineage?
December 12, 2007
The authors of this paper present a simple model of population expansion and migration over the more than 50,000 years that may better explain much of the current global pattern of DNA variation. These interpretations imply that cultural adaptation accompanied by population growth over the past 10,000 to 20,000 years, such as the spread of agriculture and migration into different climatic environments, may have supplied much of the selective pressure that explains recent genetic adaptation in humans.
Teenagers (and their teeth) – then and now
December 8, 2007
Human offspring take more than twice the time to reach adulthood than do our closest living relatives, chimps and gorillas. This period of delayed maturation results in what we call the teenage years and is a characteristic of modern humans. Paleoanthropologists wonder how far back in the record of bipedal existence this delayed maturation commenced. Two papers, one in the journal Science the other in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed light on this phenomenon. They discuss the results of analyses on teeth and crania of two early relatives of our species, separated widely in both time and geography, and they reach intriguing conclusions.
Fossil Teeth Speak
October 18, 2007
Dr Gary Schwartz, professor of paleoanthropology at the Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, is researching fossil teeth at the micron level and discovering what several million year old teeth can tell us about the individual whose teeth they were and how rapidly our earliest ancestors matured to adulthood as compared with other great apes. Listen to Professor Schwartz' brief talk. This is the first of a series of podcasts to be offered at becominghuman.org
Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa
October 17, 2007
Evidence of early humans living on the coast in South Africa, harvesting food from the sea, employing complex bladelet tools and using red pigments in symbolic behavior 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented, is being reported in the Oct. 18, 2007 issue of the journal Nature.
Hobbit revisited
September 24, 2007
In a paper appearing on September 20 in Science, analysis of the wrist bones of Homo floresiensis demonstrates this skeleton could not be a dwarf human, as has been argued. The paper also adds to the accumulating evidence the specimen is a strange mix of nearly modern and very primitive characteristics.
Reevaluation of Neanderthal DNA
September 6, 2007
Contamination of ancient samples may have led to claims that humans and Neanderthals interbred. A groundbreaking analysis of Neanderthal DNA that suggested they interbred with humans was based on samples contaminated with human DNA, a new study suggests
New and provocative fossils from Kenya
August 22, 2007
We describe two new cranial fossils from the Koobi Fora Formation, east of Lake Turkana in Kenya, that have bearing on the relationship between species of early Homo. A partial maxilla assigned to H. habilis reliably demonstrates that this species survived until later than previously recognized, making an anagenetic relationship with H. erectus unlikely.
Discovery and implications of the Dikika child
August 7, 2007
One of the insights from recent research on the skeletal development of hominoids (apes and humans) is that the foundations of adult skull anatomy diagnostic of the different great ape species are established very early in ontogeny.
My Dear Fellow Species
May 20, 2007
Last week, the Darwin Correspondence Project, based at Cambridge University, put about 5,000 letters to and from Darwin, some of them previously unpublished, online at darwinproject.ac.uk, with thousands more to follow.
Clark Howell, 81, Leader in Study of Human Origins, Dies
March 16, 2007
Noted leader in the field of human origins research dies
The New Science of Human Evolution
March 15, 2007
The new science of the brain and DNA is rewriting the history of human origins
Archeologists Find Evidence of Chimp Tool Use
March 7, 2007
Archaeologists Find Signs Of Early Chimps' Tool Use
New Fossils of Homo floresiensis
October 13, 2005
Additional fossils attributed to Homo floresiensis have been described. These fossils provided more evidence for an endemic species of small bodied Homo on Flores.
Tool Use Observed in Wild Gorillas
September 30, 2005
Great apes, including chimpanzees and orangutans, have been observed using tools in the wild but until now tool use had not been observed in gorillas. Two new reports highlight the ability of gorillas to use tools in the wild.
Chimpanzee Genome Sequenced
September 1, 2005
The genome of the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, has been sequenced. Several other species, including humans, have had their genomes sequenced previously.
The Ape in the Tree
This book, written for the general public, details the history of one of the lesser known branches in our family tree. The subject is the genus Proconsul, a primate that lived in Africa some 18 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. In this engaging volume, Alan Walker and his wife and fellow paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman describe the early discoveries of specimens that have since been attributed to various species of Proconsul, the more recent discoveries by Walker and his team, and interpretations of the paleobiology of this stem hominoid.
Wisdom of the Bones
Nariokotome is not a word that flows trippingly off the tongue, and you won't find it easily in any ordinary dictionary or atlas. But to students of human evolution it is the place in northern Kenya, west of Lake Turkana where an astonishingly complete 1.6 million-year-old juvenile Homo erectus skeleton was discovered in 1984.
Three basic texts, offering overviews of paleoanthropology for the student.
Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins (Zimmer); The Complete World of Human Evolution (Stringer & Andrews) Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction (Wood) are recommended reading for students seeking a survey of the discipline and also for the general reader interested in obtaining a thorough overview of the study of human origins
Extend the learning experience with these in-depth lesson plans and activites.
Glossary, Related Media, and Websites
