How Human Are We?
Hand axes crafted by Homo erectus required skills and planning—and likely, generational knowledge. Nick Longrich This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been rep…
Tag: Biology
“Of Peccaries and People: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country” RAI Anthropology and Conservation Conference Talk 2021
On October 27, I presented some of my preliminary research at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2021 Anthropology and Conservation conference at the “Living with Diversity in a More-t…
“Of People and Peccaries: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country” Transcript (RAI Anthropology and Conservation 2021)
Presentation Slides: Of People and Peccaries PresentationDownload INTRODUCTION On my first day of fieldwork, I climbed a steep hill where my collaborator, Roger, reported a group of javelina…
Can There Be More African Paleoanthropologists?
Paleoanthropologist Isaiah Nengo, director of science for the Turkana Basin Institute (in a white shirt), oversees a dig site in Turkana County, Kenya. David Gottlieb Aoron Eipa Emmanuel,…
Five Human Species You May Not Know About
We’re so used to the idea of being the only people around that it seems outlandish to think that not so long ago in our evolutionary history, multiple…
Naming Species in Colombia’s Biodiverse Landscapes
There is a unique pair of rules on Sattins Island, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s world of Earthsea. This pair is called The Rules of Names and though…
Can Anthropology Help Heal Puerto Rico’s Diabetes Crisis?
Diabetes can present additional complications for patients in times of stress, such as during evacuations after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. Joe Raedle/Getty Images “Doctors do…
Did Dads Evolve?
[no-caption] Vincent van Gogh/Wikimedia Commons This article was originally published at Knowable Magazine and has been republished under Creative Commons. Lee Gettler is hard to get on t…
What Indigenous Languages Reveal About Bear Genetics
[no-caption] Alh1/Flickr This article was originally published at Hakai Magazine and has been republished with permission. Along the central coast of British Columbia, grizzly bears go by…
Qualifying Exam Essay: Javelinas in SPAAAACE and Time
I have passed my qualifying exams and so am making my essays available on my blog. The other essays can be found: Attending to Animals in Anthropology and…
Is Homo longi an Extinct Human Species?
[no-caption] Chuang Zhao This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. In 1933, a mysterious fossil skull was discovered near …
Five Ways Humans Evolved to be Athletes
The coming Olympics will showcase some of the most extraordinary human feats of strength, speed, and agility. As an archaeologist who focuses on the development of the human…
Culture—Not Genetics—Was More Salient for Anglo-Saxons
An Anglo-Saxon burial mound rises in Taplow Court, England. Shutterstock This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Scholar…
The Evolution of Throwing
United States Olympic athlete Kara Winger competes in the women’s javelin throw in 2019. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images With the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, Kara Winger is trainin…
Sexism Still Winning at the Olympic Games
New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is, this year, the first openly trans athlete to be picked for an Olympic team. Alex Pantling/Getty Images I loved the Olympics growing…
How Apes Reveal Human History
Except for humans, every great ape is endangered—many at great risk of going extinct. There are fewer than 300,000 chimpanzees living in the wild. USAID Africa Bureau/Wikimedia Commons…
Chasing the Myths of Mexico’s “Superrunners”
Surrounded by torch-bearing supporters, runners kick a ball as part of a traditional rarajípare racing event practiced by the Rarámuri people of Mexico. Marcos Ferro On a mesa…
Sex in Sport: Men Don’t Always Have the Advantage
Many sporting events, like the Paris Marathon, have separate categories for men and women. Michel Stoupak/NurPhoto/Getty Images As the Summer Olympics gear up to kick off in Tokyo,…
How Scientific Taxonomy Constructed the Myth of Race
[no-caption] Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images As a graduate assistant in biological anthropology at the University at Buffalo, I was tasked with curating the primate skeletal collection. The…
Did a Magnetic Field Reversal Doom Neanderthals?
I remember exactly where I was when I first learned about magnetic field reversals: sitting in a lab as an undergraduate student in a geoarchaeology class. I knew…
Mapping Human and Neanderthal Genomes
Back in 1990, researchers embarked on an epic project to map out all of human DNA: the Human Genome Project. Their first draft of the human genome was…
Is Love a Biological Reality?
Helen Fisher knows more about love than most. As a biological anthropologist who studies the topic, she has been a chief scientific adviser to the internet dating site…
Who First Made the Caribbean Home?
Volunteers and students from the United States and the Bahamas helped excavate the dunes where the Lucayan ancestral remains were found. William F. Keegan Locals in the Bahamas…
Time to Rethink Teeth
Tooth enamel growth starts before birth and continues until adult teeth are fully formed. Ksenia Chernaya/Pexels Four years ago, I found myself cataloguing some dusty containers of about…