A while ago now I wrote something on the Dmanisi fossils – the remains of a few individuals that suggest that Homo erectus spread relatively quickly through Eurasia after leaving Africa. I’ve just come across an interesting post on the Panda’s Thumb that I thought makes a good follow-up. Read it & see what you think.
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Grant Jacobs says:
Hi Alison,
I think this is the Panda’s Thumb article you are referring to (?): http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/11/dmanisi-postcranial.html
It’s nice to see some of the background explained. The article spends a bit of it’s time addressing Creationist objections, though, something I have to admit I’ve had my full of for the moment…! (Mind you, it is from Panda’s Thumb, I guess it comes with the territory.)
One thing I find a bit difficult from as a non-specialist reading some of these papers is trying to appreciate how the sizes, etc., compare with distribution of sizes, etc., seen in modern man and other fossils, so it’s really nice to see them plot the range of sizes, etc., so that ignoramuses like me could easily see picture 🙂
Today is also the centenary of Rutherford receiving his Nobel Prize: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4788638a11.html
Alison Campbell says:
That’s the one. I thought it very interesting (& from the perspective of a classroom teacher, dealing with the creationist stuff is rather useful ). And yay Rutherford! – I’m hoping that Marcus will blog on that at Physics Stop, although since he’s on leave at the moment I suspect coverage will be intermittent for a while.