If Mary Beard is right, what’s happened to the DNA of Africans from Roman Britain?
There are many reasons why a genetic legacy might not be seen in contemporary populations – Mary Beard was right to defend the BBC’s cartoon If you have…
Tag: Biology
Why Are Human Teeth So Messed Up?
Most animals would never need braces even if they could get them. Monica y Garza/Flickr This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative…
Did human women contribute to Neanderthal genomes over 200,000 years ago?
A new Neanderthal mitochondrial genome supports a remarkable hypothesis – that there was interbreeding with an extremely early migration of African hominins Keeping pace with new developments in…
Homo naledi genome: Will we ever find this elusive key to human evolution? | Jennifer Raff
Despite the recent announcement of a new haul of Homo naledi fossils, recovering ancient DNA is still proving as difficult as ever Despite what many people believe, paradigm-shifting…
Nature’s Most Creative Copulators
For humans, sex is risky, socially complicated, and culturally loaded—but it’s almost always fun. David Williams Googling “sex” in 2016 yields approximately 3.34 billion results in 0.29 s…
Do You See What I See?
Social scientists have long been fascinated by how people in different cultures perceive and describe color. Michelle Jones/SAPIENS In a Candoshi village in the heart of Peru, anthropolog…
Why Do We Keep Using the Word “Caucasian”?
The word “Caucasian” is used in the U.S. to describe white people, but it doesn’t indicate anything real. It’s the wrong term to use! My colleague and one…
The Biological Fallacy of American’s Race Problem #MeadCompetition
I love my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. I’m sure you’ve heard about Baltimore lately, with its sagging school system, serving a mainly African-American population; its yet again exploding…
Material as opposed to what? Three recent ethnographies of welfare, biological labor, and human dignity by Leo Coleman
Catherine Fennell. Last Project Standing: Civics and Sympathy in Post-Welfare Chicago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. Kalinda Vora. Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of O…
The Sexual Allure of Simplicity
You have probably seen them at your local bar: the man with a beard, plaid shirt, and wool hat; the woman with an unbuttoned flannel over a T-shirt,…
New Articulations of Biological Difference in the 21st Century: A Conversation
This conversation is prompted by continued frustration about how race is discussed and understood by the public and by those researchers who remain determined to draw clean lines…
Is the Term “People of Color” Acceptable in This Day and Age?
One day a student approached me after class and asked, “What should I call students who are of Asian descent? Is it OK to just say Asian, or…
Babies and Mothers May Be Evolving Due to C-sections
The regular use of cesarean sections could be resulting in the need for even more C-sections, according to new research. Heathere Willoughby/Flickr It’s not easy to be born. In…
The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, Week 4: Gina Athena Ulysse on “Race: The Power of an Illusion”
The editors of Anthropoliteia are happy to present the latest entry in on ongoing series The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical…
When Did Sex Become Fun?
There are multiple answers to the question of where we come from: early hominins, monkeys, primordial goo, or the Big Bang, to name a few. Today’s answer, though,…
Iconic Fossil Assigned Probable Cause of Death: A Big Fall
John Kappelman, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and his colleagues conducted a paleoforensic analysis on Lucy, the celebrated 3.18-million-year-old hominin skeleto…
The Man Who Was Mistaken for a Homo sapiens in a Hat
In 1939, anthropologist Carleton Coon used an artist’s reconstruction of the Neanderthal specimen La Chapelle aux Saints in a hat to argue that people’s impressions of differences between grou…
What Can Vampire Bats Teach Us About Friendship?
How did human friendship evolve? Vampire bats offer a unique opportunity to study the phenomenon of friendship through observing their strong social bonds. Josh More/Flickr Gerald Carter …
Diseases That Don’t Fit
Dengue, Zika, and the Trouble with Classifications As Earth’s climate and species assemblages rapidly change, emergent zoonoses—diseases that spill over from nonhuman animal to human populations—are o…
New Discovery Expands the Hobbit Family Tree
Recently found fossil remains that are 700,000 years old provide new insights about the extinct species Homo floresiensis, which was originally discovered in 2003. Researchers have attributed the…
Labor Pains and Helpless Infants: Eve or Evolution? (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this post, we discussed two explanations for difficult childbirth and helpless babies: the Fall and the obstetrical dilemma (OD) hypothesis. Both have their weaknesses.…
The Birth of the “Neanderthals”
When first found, “Neanderthal man” remains were thought by some scientists to be from a diseased modern human. However, upon examining the Gibraltar skull, George Busk argued that…
Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh … and Hominins?
Ligers, tigons, and pizzlies, oh my! What do these critters have in common? They are the offspring of animals that belong to distinct lineages, or populations that have…
Labor Pains and Helpless Infants: Eve or Evolution? (Part I)
Before Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and shared it with Adam, being human was apparently hunky-dory. However, after Earth’s first two people disobeyed their creator, He…