Spend a Day Tracking Chimpanzees
A series of short videos captures a rare view into the lives of wild chimps through the eyes of a researcher. ✽ Some see chimpanzees as invariably belligerent…
Tag: Evolution
Extinguishing the Idea That Hobbits Had Fire
Research has overturned earlier claims that a diminutive human relative, Homo floresiensis, lit fires—but big stories die hard. SMOKING HOT HOBBITS When you think “the hobbit,” a certain…
A New Take on an Old Fossil Hints at Ancient Migrations
Two anthropologists explain how an enigmatic human fossil jawbone—and its 3D-printed reconstruction—may evidence an early Homo sapiens presence in Europe and shed new light on evolutionary diversity a…
How Power Pervades Portrayals of Human Evolution
An evolutionary scholar examines racist and sexist depictions of human evolution that continue to permeate science, education, and popular culture. This article was originally published at The Conver…
Twitter’s Blue Tick Is a Fake Signal
Evolutionary theory can help us better understand the recent debacle about social media platforms’ popular symbol as a signaling problem. This article was originally published at The Conversati…
On Flores Island, Do Ape-Men Still Exist?
Islanders have long claimed ape-like humans, remarkably similar to the fossil species Homo floresiensis, survive in secluded forests of Indonesia. An anthropologist investigates why. Excerpted from Be…
My Search for the Origins of Clothing
An archaeologist uses climate data and tailoring tools to trace the invention and evolution of apparel in the world’s colder climates. seeking paleolithic clothing origins Not long ago,…
Paleoanthropology: The Ancestor Worshipping Death Cult
Firstly, this is satire. I love all of my paleoanthropologist friends. Paleoanthropology is a scientific discipline dedicated to illuminating our evolutionary history. However, it is also a low-k…
What Molars and Math Reveal About the Human Brain
A paleoanthropologist explains what fossilized teeth—analyzed through a recently developed mathematical equation—can tell us about how brains have developed in utero over millions of years of human ev…
Club-Wielding Ancestors: Myth or Reality?
Inspired by pop culture depictions of cavepeople, an archaeologist searches for elusive evidence of ancient wooden clubs. ✽ Growing up in the 1990s, I first encountered the ancient…
How Ancient Humans Came to Cope With the Cold
Two anthropologists explain how humans managed to not just survive but dominate northern climates despite evolutionary origins in—and hence, biological predispositions to—warmer environments. This ar…
Did Humanity Really Arise in One Place?
New evidence is prompting researchers to rethink Homo sapiens’ origin story—and what it means to be human. ✽ As a university student in the early 2010s, I recall…
What If Neanderthals Had Outlived Homo Sapiens?
An anthropologist considers how different the world might be if Neanderthals—and hence, their ways of navigating relationships with the environment and one another—had survived the gauntlet of evoluti…
Is a “Sweet Tooth” Genetic?
An anthropologist explains the evolutionary origins of why so many people seem practically programmed to love sugar. This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been…
Did Meat Do Neanderthals In?
Studying zinc levels in unearthed Neanderthal skeletal remains, an archaeologist examines whether the carnivorous eating habits of Neanderthals in the Eurasian Steppe contributed to their eventual ext…
Extracting Hominin Evolution From Fossilized Teeth
Two anthropologists explain how analyses of oxygen isotopes from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution amid environmental changes. This article was origina…
Was Our Skin Meant for the Sun?
An anthropologist examines the history of human skin under the sun, revealing how evolution and culture conspired to shape our outermost organ. This article was originally published at…
New project in evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash. As a cultural anthropologist, I am thrilled that cultural variation is increasingly recognized as significant in a wide range of fields, cognitive…
Are Insomniacs Overthinking Sleep?
From WiFi-enabled sleep trackers to wearable brain-altering apps, sleep technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated. But is the antidote to insomnia far more ancient? ✽ You will likely spend…
The Problems of Evolution as a “March of Progress”
The idea that evolution is a hierarchy of complexity with humans on top lurks in everything from biology classes to politics. It’s time to unlearn this false and…
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
An anthropologist digs into the origins of a popular story attributed to Margaret Mead about the original sign of civilization. ✽ According to a commonly shared story, the…
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
According to a commonly shared story, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was supposedly asked by a student what she thought was the earliest sign of a civilized society. There…
What the Discovery of Denisovan Remains in Laos Means
The Tam Ngu Hao 2 Cave in Laos held Denisovan remains—the first ever found in Southeast Asia, showing the expansive geographical reach of this hominin species. Fabrice Demeter/University…
What the Vai Script Reveals About the Evolution of Writing
This handwritten example of Vai script dates to around 1850. British Library/Wikimedia Commons In a small West African village, a man named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a compelling…