paleoanthropology
The Effect of Ardipithecus ramidus on Agnopithecus creationus
Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr
There were a stream of posts on the anthropology blogs about Ardipithecus ramidus, the 4.4 million year old fossil hominid originally discovered by a team led by Tim White in Ethiopia between 1992-1993. I really wanted to get in on it but barely had time to read some of [...]
I Love Lucy!
Australopithecus Afarensis skeleton was discovered in 1974 near Hadar in Ethiopia, and she was nicknamed “Lucy” by the paleoanthropologists who found her. As the story goes, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles was playing during their celebration of finding the 3.2 million year old hominid.
Because of their find, pages upon pages of [...]
The First Americans Were Immigrants of Two Populations
The most recent online issue of Current Biology has an article describing the research which reveals evidence that the first Americans immigrated via two distinct populations at around the same time. One population is comprised of haplogroup D4h3, which took the Pacific coastal route; the second is made up of haplogroup X2a and they migrated [...]
Neanderthals were not stupid
It has long been thought that one of the reason Homo sapiens eventually dominated the hominid line, colonizing Africa and Europe beginning at around 40,000 years ago and eradicating or out-competing the Neanderthals, was that they were technologically advantaged. The idea was that because H. sapiens had better stone tool technologies, they had the edge, [...]
Cavemen Liked Big Butts and They Cannot Lie
Acouple of online editions of U.K. newspapers reported the recent finds of 30 carvings recovered at an archaeological site in Poland, dating to about 15,000 years ago. Most anthropologists and archaeologists would probably be immediately familiar with the Venus Figurine motif, but the recent media report was been picked up by a few blogs, each [...]
10 Million Year Old Ape Found in Ethiopia
Not alive. I just wanted to clarify that first.
But the fossil remains of what is being dubbed Chororapithecus abyssinicus by the Ethiopian-Japanese team that discovered the ancient ape “represents the earliest recognised primate directly related to modern-day gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.”
Found were a single canine and eight molars which show that Chororapithecus was either an [...]
Iceman Bled to Death on Glacier – Killed by Arrow
At least that’s the title I should have used on March 20, 2007 when I scooped the BBC, the LA Times, National Geographic and other major and minor media outlets.
My original post on the topic was at Anthropology.net, titled New Research on Ötzi, the Iceman, Cometh. From that post I discussed the study conducted on [...]
Paleoanthropology: Multiregional versus Replacement
The multiregional evolution hypothesis asserts that modern humans are the present manifestation of older species of hominids including Homo neanderthalensis and H. erectus. The replacement hypothesis, however, states that modern humans are a new species and that the older species mentioned above were replaced.
In the latter hypothesis, transition of archaic H. sapiens to modern [...]
Howler Monkeys Part 4: References and Cited Works
I hope if you read this far in this four part series, that you enjoyed reading about one of the most enigmatic New World monkeys. Below is the list of works cited in the previous three parts, but I’m also going to include a few sources that are Internet accessible for those without quick access [...]
Howler Monkeys Part 2: Dietary Needs and Habits
Howler Photo by princessangel
Milton’s Study on and Island in the Panama Canal
Milton studied two groups of mantled howlers on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal (1980) and discovered that while howlers don’t have to pursue their foods, neither can they use a “sit and wait” strategy. Their preference for seasonal foods presents [...]
