I’ve written a couple of posts on ‘Ida’ (Darwinius massillae) – the 47-million-years-old fossil primate which has been the focus of so much media hoop-la. For those of you who would like to read more widely about this discovery, Laelaps has hosted a blog carnival where he’s brought together links to some great writing by […]
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an update on ida
In today’s Science journal there’s an update (Gibbons, 2009) on all the hoop-la associated with the unveiling of 47-million-year-old Darwinius massillae (aka ‘Ida). I commented earlier that the hugely overblown press coverage that accompanied the publication of Ida’s description in PLoS One was a worrying thing. It described Ida as a ‘missing link’ (a claim that the authors of […]
Continue readinga piece of palaeolithic er*tica?
She has enormous, protuberant breasts, huge buttocks, exaggerated genitalia, and no head. Oh, yes, and she’s 35,000 years old – the oldest ‘Venus’ figurine to date (Conard, 2009).
Continue readingankle joints & hominin evolution
Some of the many questions to do with human evolution centre on our way of getting around – just when did bipedalism evolve? Is bipedalism a derived state, found only in our own twig of the primate family tree? Or is it a feature seen in the last common ancestor that we share with our […]
Continue readingan entertaining look at our family tree
Horrakapotchkin! It seems that hsi is no longer available – something t do with a ‘terms of use violation’. I do hope the problem – whatever it is – is cleared up as this really was rather cool. ______________________________________________________________________________ and a useful introduction to some of the terminology used in phylogenetics. (Courtesy, as usual, of […]
Continue readinglactose (in)tolerance & domestication of cattle
Humans first domesticated cattle about 8.000 years ago. Possibly this was first for the meat, but at some point someone (or rather, several someones in several different regions) started also making use of the milk given by lactating cows. Which raises some interesting questions, as many people can’t digest the milk sugar, lactose, found in […]
Continue readingsequencing the neadertal genome
A few days ago now there was a splash of excitement in the newspapers: a research team had announced that they’d sequenced the Neandertal genome. (They didn’t use exclamation marks but you could imagine them there.) I thought at the time that it sounded interesting, but it was a bit unusual that the announcement preceded […]
Continue readingcomplete neanderthal mtDNA sequenced
Grump grumpity grump – a headline like that & we don’t have full access to the journal (only up to a year ago)…. But anyway – on The Panda’s Thumb there’s a report of a research project which has achieved the full Neandertal mitochondrial DNA sequence. TPT quotes a conclusion from the summary of the paper: […]
Continue readingbreaking the species barrier
I’ve just stumbled across a provocative – & thought-provoking – essay by Richard Dawkins. It caught my attention because I’m occasionally asked if there’s ever been a chimp-human hybrid. (The answer, so far, is ‘no’ – well, not since the two species diverged around 6 million years ago.) To Dawkins, the creation of such a […]
Continue readinghow do we recognise ‘culture’?
The ‘human evolution’ achievement standard expects you to be able to discuss trends in cultural evolution. You need to be aware of evidence relating to: use of tools (stone, wood, bone), fire, shelter, clothing, abstract thought (communication, language, art), food-gathering, and domestication of plants & animals. The earliest evidence for culture is the presence of stone tools, […]
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