Ever since its fossil remains were discovered, scientists have wondered about the place of Orrorin tugenensis and its place in our family tree. Was it bipedal? And where were its closest relatives? One controversial suggestion was that Orrorin was directly ancestral to our own genus – leaving the australopiths completely out in the cold.
Continue readingThe other day one of my students came by my office to ask about his essay. He’d found a book that suggested that the human species was split into 3 races (black, white, & oriental, in case you’re wondering), & that these races differed in things like fecundity and birth rate. Should he include this […]
Continue readingThis one’s been sitting in my ‘good blogging material’ folder for a while now: time to have a look at it, I think.
Continue readingHere's a question for you. In 2006 scientists announced the discovery of a new hominin fossil: a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis. The media quickly dubbed it "Lucy's child" (well, it was a catchy name, even though the underlying implied relationship had no evidence to support it!). So, tell me, how could scientists be sure that this individual was an […]
Continue readingHere's something for your reading list: an excellent extended essay on how our view of human evolution, & of our place in the world, has changed over time. Enjoy!
Continue readingLast week the NZ Herald carried a story, based on a new scientific paper, about how evolution had affected the shape of women's spines, resulting in an adaptation for weight-bearing during pregnancy. The paper (Whitcome et al. 2007) describes how men & women differ in the shape of their lumbar vertebrae, and relates this to the weight gain […]
Continue readingI wish I'd found this page earlier – you might have found it interesting in preparing for your exams. It's a series of images pf reconstructed hominin faces, & a linking story about them. (There's actually a whole book about them – I bought myself a copy earlier this year & I'm enjoying dipping into […]
Continue readingOne of the 'themes' you need to think about, when studying human evolution, is dispersal – just how did human populations spread about the globe, and when did they do it? In September this year a group of scientists got to together to talk about how and when humans might have become seafarers.
Continue readingScientists have thought for a long time that tree shrews are the closest living relatives of primates. More recently, use of DNA data together with morphological comparisons suggested that colugos are also very closely related to apes, monkeys (& us). These so-called 'flying' lemurs use extensive flaps of loose skin, stretched between their outspread front and back […]
Continue readingI remembered, after my last post, that there's an excellent book that puts domestication of plants and animals into a global perspective and asks, among other things, why it was europeans who got into building large overseas empires, not people from other parts of the world. It's Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond (1998), […]
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