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…
Tag: Evolution
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?
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…
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…
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…
Busting Myths About Sex and Gender
The belief that males are aggressive while females are nurturing is a dangerous myth. Evgeny Tchebotarev/Pexels Excerpted from the second edition of Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They…
Untangling Race From Hair
Descriptions of hair have long been knotted with false notions of race, but new research points to empowering ways of viewing this emotionally charged physical trait. D3sign/Getty Images …
What’s the Appeal of Deep Voices in Men?
Deep voices, like singer Barry White’s bass-baritone, are seen as appealing across a variety of cultures and sexual identities. POP-EYE/ullstein bild/Getty Images For many people, Barry W…
Meet the Ancient Technologists Who Changed Everything
The idea of crafting and using beads as ornamentation may have spread from North Africa outward to other parts of the African continent and to Europe. Nicholas R.…
My Tribute to Richard Leakey
Richard Leakey and his teams’ fossil discoveries profoundly shaped our knowledge of human origins. Keith Beaty/Toronto Star/Getty Images On January 2, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey d…
Do Things Have to Be This Way?
[no-caption] Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images Excerpted from The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. © 2021 by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Reprinted with permission from Farra…
5 Questions About the History of Humanity
Join us LIVE for a 25-minute Q&A with archaeologist and author David Wengrow to discuss his New York Times bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of…
The Diet of the Future Is a Menu That Draws From the Ancient Past
The author wears an outfit he made using ancient tools, methods, and materials while filming the National Geographic TV show The Great Human Race in Alaska. Brent Meske/Courtesy…
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…