Know Your Hominin: The Dederiyeh Neanderthal Infant

The Dederiyeh Neanderthal infant was found in Dederiyeh Cave, in Syria, in 1993. The skelton is that of a two year old and dates to 50,000-70,000 years ago. Source: Akazawa et al 1995 Neanderthal infant burial from the Dederiyeh cave in Syria

Begging For Articles: Asian Australopithecines

Can someone with access send me the following articles: A critical analysis of claims for the existence of Southeast Asian australopithecines, Journal of Human Evolution Volume 26, Issue 1, Pages 3–21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jhev.1994.1002 Meganthropus, australopithecines and hominids, American Journal of Physical Anthropology Volume 11, Issue 1, pages 1–38, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330110112 Further remarks on the relationship between [...]

Know Your Hominin: Sambungmacan 3

Sambungmacan 3 was discovered in 1977 and spent some time on the antiquities market, eventually ending up in New York, where its importance was realized. It has since been returned to Indonesia. It is attributed to Homo erectus and may be the skull of a female. For Further Reading: Broadfield et al (2001) Endocast of [...]

A New Study on Homo floresiensis

Nature News mentions a new study on Homo floresiensis that concludes that the fossil is that of a microcephalic modern human. The study is actually published in PNAS (and if someone could send me a copy I would appreciate it – my email is in the about tab).

Neanderthal and Human Brain Growth

I was hoping to have a more in depth post on this for the upcoming edition of the Four Stone Hearth but I am not going to get it finished in time. Here is the short version.

Rickets, Neanderthals, And Lubenow: Part Two

In the previous post in this series I looked at vitamin D metabolism and the effects of vitamin D deficiency on the skeleton. So, lets talk about Lubenow and Neanderthals. Lubenows discussion of Neanderthals and rickets occurs in chapter 14. He begins the chapter by invoking the Genesis flood to explain the ice ages, which [...]

Rickets, Neanderthals, And Lubenow: Part One

I have mentioned previously that I was reading Lubenow’s Bones of Contention. In this post I would like to focus on Lubenow’s understanding of rickets and Neanderthal morphology. In order to discuss that I first need to discuss vitamin D deficiency

Interesting Science Pictures: Part XII

This is from an article in PaleoAnthropology. The map, of the find locations for the Ngangdong specimens, hasn’t been seen in 75 years. Picture source: Huffman et al (2010) Provenience Reassessment of the 1931–1933 Ngandong Homo erectus (Java), Confirmation of the Bone-Bed Origin Reported by the Discoverers. PaleoAnthropology 2010:1-60 doi:10.4207/PA.2010.ART34

What You Can Learn From Bones: The Proximal Femur

There is an interesting article in HOMO – Journal of Comparative Human Biology on the proximal femur. The article, Geometric morphometric analyses of hominid proximal femora: Taxonomic and phylogenetic considerations, looked at whether one can separate extant hominids into different taxa using geometric morphometrics and whether one could distinguish Homo from Australopithecus and Paranthropus.

The Khvalynsk Neanderthal Humerus

I meant to write about this yesterday but got sidetracked and Hawks beat me to it. Except –

James Valentine On Phyla

Consider the changing morphospace within the stem group of a phylum when it is traced back through successively earlier nodes from the ancestor of the crown group (the crown ancestor) to its last common ancestor with a sister phylum. The crown synapomorphies are lost immediately. Some stem-group branches may be quite diverse, and their derived [...]

Some Random Thoughts About Australopithecus sediba

I am going to be very busy today so I won’t get an in depth post up on Australopithecus sediba until tomorrow. In the meantime three items jumped out at me so I thought I would, briefly, mention them.

Things You Would Like To See

Science Daily has an item concerning the Laetoli foot print study in PLoS One. One bit stands out: The subjects walked both with normal, erect human gaits and then with crouched, chimpanzee-like gaits. Film of the latter would be interesting – lord knows we were disappointed with last year’s Ardipithecus special on that score… Speaking [...]

Two Million Year Old Artifacts on Sulawesi: The Return of Hominid Catastrophism

That is what this article in the Guardian claims!

Like Sands Through the Hourglass, These Are the Taxonomic Assessments of the Hobbit

The Journal of Human Evolution is going to have a special issue devoted to Homo floresiensis and word is leaking out on one of the articles in it. The Australian has the best article so far. I say that because it inspired a Homer Simpson like D’OH moment on my part. Here is why: