Human evolution

Marc Hauser? See Evilicious. (They are still trying to rehabilitate him after the “monkeys’ intelligence” debacle.) Maybe not. From ScienceDaily: New research suggests that betrayals of trust were the missing link in understanding the rapid spread of our own species around the world. Moral disputes motivated by broken trust and a sense of betrayal became more frequent and motivated early humans to put distance between them and their rivals. … She suggests that as commitments to others became more essential to survival, and human groups ever more motivated to identify and punish those who cheat, the ‘dark’ side of human nature also developed. Moral disputes motivated by broken trust and a sense of betrayal became more frequent and motivated early humans Read More ›

We were recently discussing an archaeology find, King Hezekiah of Judah’s seal imprint (first ever for a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king in a scientific archaeological excavation). Here are top tens for 2015 from Mashable, including Investigation with scanning electron microscopy on a 14,000-year-old molar revealed the oldest known dentistry, as the infected tooth was partially cleaned with flint tools. From Discover: “It predates any undisputed evidence of dental and cranial surgery, currently represented by dental drillings and cranial trephinations dating back to the Mesolithic-Neolithic period, about 9,000-7,000 years ago, “ Benazzi said. We await news re Stone Age anaesthetics, we really do. Some early dentistry, pictured above, used beeswax for fillings. See also: The search for Read More ›

Hezekiah (741–686 BC) , king of Judah, was known for reform and strengthening national defenses. From ScienceDaily: The impression bears an inscription in ancient Hebrew script: “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah,” and a two-winged sun, with wings turned downward, flanked by two ankh symbols symbolizing life. … Dr. Eilat Mazar said: “Although seal impressions bearing King Hezekiah’s name have already been known from the antiquities market since the middle of the 1990s, some with a winged scarab (dung beetle) symbol and others with a winged sun, this is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation.”More. There’s probably a lot of Read More ›

In fact, it’s unlikely that people at New Scientist are going to do much of that themselves; it sounds more like a message intended for Everyone Else. Reviewing two new books for the Christmas trade, CultureLab: WITH the year drawing to a close, it’s time to throw out old ideas and bring in the new. Two mind-stretching books, The Secret of our Success by anthropologist Joseph Henrich, and The Crucible of Language by cognitive linguist Vyvyan Evans, will help you do just that. Both contain powerful ideas. The first forces a rethink of what makes humans special: the answer is not that we are terribly clever or able to do much with our big brains on our own. The second Read More ›

Golden ratio? 1.618 From 1.5 million to 200,000 years ago, called the Acheulian period From Lithic Studies: Pattern Recognition of Universal Mathematical Constants in Acheulean Biface Formats by Alan Edward Cannell See also:What we know about human evolution What we know about the human mind Follow UD News at Twitter! Here’s the abstract: The similar design formats of many Acheulean bifaces has prompted several studies into the use of ‘mental templates’, leading to controversial claims that there may be a relation between length and width equal to the Golden Ratio. To avoid subjectivity, these studies have used aggregate data from assemblages that, by definition, mask the individuality of each tool, its material, any retouching and the original imposed design. Visual pattern Read More ›

At Salvo, Casey Luskin writes, Hominid Hype, Take 2015 This Time It’s “Homo Naledi” The discoverers of Homo naledi are calling it an “anatomical mosaic.” That terminology raises a red flag. In the parlance of evolutionary biology, that usually means the fossil is a unique organism that doesn’t fit easily into the standard evolutionary tree. As one technical paper concluded, “the H. naledi skeleton is a unique mosaic previously unknown in the human fossil record.” Indeed, just four years ago, the hominin Australopithecus sediba—also discovered and promoted by Berger—was the transitional form du jure between the australopithecines and our own genus, Homo. Yet sediba is very different from naledi in some important ways, including the pelvis. If the same researchers Read More ›

Did farming change the human genome? If so, the genome has certainly been a work in rapid progress, and maybe regress too From : Genomic analysis of ancient human remains identifies specific genes that changed during and after the transition in Europe from hunting and gathering to farming about 8,500 years ago. Many of the genes are associated with height, immunity, lactose digestion, light skin pigmentation, blue eye color and celiac disease risk. … “From an archaeological perspective, it’s quite amazing,” said co-senior author Ron Pinhasi, associate professor of archaeology at University College Dublin. “The Neolithic revolution is perhaps the most important transition in human prehistory. We now have proof that people did actually go from Anatolia into Europe and Read More ›

From Science Daily: The researchers found stone tools, which the early hunters are likely to have used to cut the meat from the bones. “That makes Megalopolis the only site in the Balkans where we have evidence of an elephant being butchered in the early Paleolithic,” says Professor Katerina Harvati of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) at the University of Tübingen. … “Despite this crucial geographic position, Paleoanthropological and Paleolithic research has been under-represented in the region due to a traditional focus on later prehistory and Classical times. As a result, very little information exists on the Lower Paleolithic of Greece. Marathousa 1 is of paramount importance for the understanding of human dispersal patterns into Europe, Read More ›

From Discover: Holes in a Bone: Flute or Fluke? Many experts believe an approximately 45,000-year-old bear femur could be a flute — the oldest known musical instrument. Ivan Turk discovered the bone in 1995 in Slovenia’s Divje Babe Archaeological Park, among cave deposits containing Neanderthal tools. But is it a hominin-made flute, or just a bone scavenged by ancient hyenas? In Science Smackdown, we let experts argue both sides of the question. More. Readers? Hear a replica played below. See also: The search for our earliest ancestors: signals in the noise and Neanderthal Man: The long-lost relative turns up again, this time with documents Follow UD News at Twitter!

From The Telegraph: The human genome is littered with sequences left behind from long-ago viral infections but now scientists have found the code is still active Now researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have found that genetic material from a retrovirus called HERV-H is not only active, but is crucial in allowing a fertilised human egg to grow into an embryo. … “What’s really interesting is that these sequences are found only in primates, raising the possibility that their function may have contributed to unique characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals. Let’s back up and be cautious here. For one thing, many primates are not particularly clever, so we need to be much more specific about why it Read More ›

From his blog: On Saturday, November 21, I had the privilege of hearing Zach Throckmorton of Lincoln Memorial University speak on Homo naledi at the Gray Fossil Site just outside of Johnson City, TN. Dr. Throckmorton is an expert on feet, and he was part of the research team that studied the fossils of Homo naledi after they were excavated from the Rising Star Cave. … I was quite struck by his candid discussion of the burial of these creatures. He was careful to note that they preferred the burial hypothesis because they could not find another credible explanation for why the bones would be in that remote chamber. At the same time, he admitted that these hominins not only Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Monkey. Scanning the brains of humans and monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognizes when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Scanning the brains of humans and macaque monkeys, the research team has identified the area at the front of the brain which in both humans and monkeys recognises when sequences of sounds occur in a legal order or in an unexpected, illegal order. Professor Petkov said: “Young children learn the rules of language as they develop, even before they are able to produce language. So, we used a ‘made up’ language first developed to study Read More ›

Assumes they are/were separate species. Wouldn’t the logical—and economical—conclusion be the exact opposite? That they weren’t separate species? But then she lives in Darwin World, coterminous with pop science journalism. Remember, Darwin’s Origin of Species was the “most influential academic book,” so we can assume that vast numbers who haven’t read or thought about it “get” the basic messages she would receive and transmit. From BBC News: I am 2.5% Neanderthal. That’s according to a genetic analysis of snippets of my DNA. It is slightly less than the European average of 2.7%. I owe my part-Neanderthal nature to an accident of history. Thousands of years ago, modern humans ran into Neanderthals somewhere in Asia or Europe. We don’t know exactly Read More ›

… by wiping out the dinosaurs Just as, we are told, climate change jump started evoltion and fast food is derailing it, we learn from a “leading Harvard physicist” a radical new theory, courtesy Yahoo News: Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University, has a different, and novel answer, which she describes in her latest book, “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs.” … In her latest book, she posits that the extinction of the dinosaurs — necessary for the emergence of humans — is linked to dark matter. Dark matter is the mysterious, invisible matter that astronomers estimate makes up 85% of all matter in our universe. … In her book, Randall describes a dark, pancake-shaped patty of densely packed dark Read More ›

Just as, we are told, climate change jump started it: From Nautilus: Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome. No wonder I keep running into people who are nearly 100 years of age. (True, I spend a fair bit of time at a local retirement residence, but there was a time when you wouldn’t meet nearly as many people well over 90 anyway. – O’Leary for News ) A group of Italian microbiologists had compared the intestinal microbes of young villagers in Burkina Faso with those of children in Florence, Italy. The villagers, who subsisted on a diet of mostly millet and sorghum, harbored far more microbial diversity than the Florentines, who ate a variant of the refined, Read More ›