PaleoAnthropology+

Shell, tooth and bone beads and pendant with organic Rubiaceae colourant (1–10) and iron-oxide (11–16) coloured residues from the Early Natufian of Kebara Cave. 1–2: Columbella beads; 3–13: Scaphopod beads; 14: Large ungulate incisive pendant; 15: Fox canine pendant; 16: Gazelle phalange bead. N°10: Dentalium sexangulum with an SEM image in secondary electrons mode showing the location of the SEM-EDS analysis of its coloured residue. It indicates the absence of iron and a high carbon content, suggesting an organic compound (photos L.D.).

Selected bone zoomorphic figurations and oval bone pendants from the Early Natufian of Kebara Cave (scale 2 cm) (photos L.D.).

The oldest reliable evidence of organic red pigment use 15,000 years ago by the first sedentary hunter-gatherers in the Levant.

Plant-based red colouration of shell beads 15,000 years ago in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel (Israel) 🏺🧪
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Far Side cartoon: Primitive theme parks.

☀️ Have a good weekend! 🏺🧪
Popular paleolithic pastimes...

#OnThisDay in 2004, the Homo floresiensis papers were published and we met, for the first time, "a new small-bodied hominin" from Flores, Indonesia. 🧪🏺

‘Callous, reckless, unethical’: scientists in row over rare fossils flown into space ‘Grand gesture’ condemned as an unethical publicity stunt that risked the loss of 2m-year-old human remains

‘Callous, reckless, unethical’:
Scientists in row over rare fossils flown into space 🏺🧪
www.theguardian.com/science/2023...

‘Grand gesture’ condemned as unethical publicity stunt that risked loss of 2m-year-old human remains

Commentary by @chrisbstringer.bsky.social @ozarchaeomaglab.bsky.social

Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea

Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea 🏺🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Both genomes share the highest similarity to Gravettian-associated individuals found several thousand years later in southwestern Europe.

A few finger bone fragments are all that is left of Denny. Image credit: Brown et al., Scientific Reports, 2016 (CC BY 4.0)

Her mother was a Neanderthal, her father was a Denisovan.

Denny is a vivid – and very “human” – reminder that human evolution is a story of hybridization.

Meet Denny,
The Only Human Hybrid Remains Ever Unearthed 🧪
www.iflscience.com/meet-denny-t...

Unknown Human Lineage Found Buried in The Neanderthal Genome We go way back.

Unknown Human Lineage Found Buried in The Neanderthal Genome www.sciencealert.com/unknown-huma...

New Special Issue of PaleoAnthropology 😍‼️
7 great pps on Niche Construction, Plasticity, and Inclusive Inheritance paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.ph...

+ obituaries - Bill Kimbel & Sally McBrearty, a book review AND the abstracts of the 13th ESHE meeting!
What a treat 🥳

Genomes Reveal the Encounter between Neanderthals and Sapiens The analysis of ancient genomes, coupled with archaeological data, makes it possible to trace different stages in the history of hybridized species

Genomes Reveal the Encounter between Neanderthals and Sapiens www.genengnews.com/topics/omics...

Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry Modern human range expansions have deeply influenced the spatial distribution of archaic introgression.

Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

From left, the Pierolapithecus cranium shortly after discovery, after initial preparation, and after virtual reconstruction. Credit: David Alba (left), Salvador Moyà-Solà (middle), Kelsey Pugh (right).

The reconstructed cranium of Pierolapithecus
and the evolution of the great ape face 🧪
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Consistent with the hypothesis species represents basal member of group and provides insight into the facial morphology of the ancestor of the group.

Stone tools. 1–2. Denticulated sidescrapers; 3. Cleaver; 4. Laminar flake; 5. Perforator; 6. Denticulate; 7. Laminar Levallois flake; 8. Levallois flake; 9. Refitted Levallois core (1–2., 6–9. Chert; 3. Quartzite; 4–5. Quartz).

Formation processes, fire use, and patterns of human occupation across the Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 5a-5b) of Gruta da Oliveira (Almonda karst system, Torres Novas, Portugal) 🧪
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Conditions for residential use seem to have be optimal during 90–92 kya and 76–78 kya.

@martamlahr.bsky.social Welcome to Bluesky.
It's nice to see you here.

From Hunted to Hunter: Neanderthals Preyed on Cave Lions, Study Finds A new archaeological analysis is the first to show that our human ancestors intentionally stalked large beasts of prey, and apex predators, no less.

From Hunted to Hunter: Neanderthals Preyed on Cave Lions, Study Finds www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/s...

Family trees based on "whole cemetery" analyses of ancient DNA are the next big thing in paleogenomics. The details about the past they reveal give archaeologists unprecedented insights into the past, like dropping in on a family reunion from thousands of years ago. 🏺🧬

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman

mRNA COVID Vaccine Technology Wins 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 🧪
bit.ly/48CDvIX

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were jointly awarded the prize for their advancements that changed the field of vaccine development and understanding of how mRNA interacts with the body’s immune system.

Just setting off to give an invited paper at University of Tübingen as part of the Ritual in Human Evolution conference. I'm hugely honoured to have been invited to speak, and more than a little excited at making the journey to Germany by train! #NetZero

uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/...

Interaction and mixture: big picture and small From the level of function of a single gene up to the movements of entire populations, our evolution was built from mixture.

“Interaction and mixture: big picture and small”
The working of a Denisovan gene in today's people, and the continuing challenges of understanding how mixture mattered to ancient people.
johnhawks.net/weblog/inter...

(a) Skeletal elements attributed to KNM-ER 1500 in rough anatomical position. Scale bar = 5 cm. (b) Sketch of a hominin skeleton (modified from Ward and Hammond, 2016) illustrating locations of the KNM-ER 1500 elements in black.

Taxonomic attribution of the KNM-ER 1500 partial skeleton from the Burgi Member of the Koobi Fora Formation, Kenya 🧪
Carol Ward , Ashley Hammond , et al
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

No feature serves to align KNM-ER 1500 with Homo to the exclusion of Paranthropus.

Lateral view of the KRM 41815/SAM-AP 6222 mandible (from the Deacon archive).

Predates 110 ka

The stratigraphy and formation of Middle Stone Age deposits in Cave 1B, Klasies River Main site, South Africa, with implications for the context, age, and cultural association of the KRM 41815/SAM-AP 6222 human mandible 🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Cave children making typical cave wall paintings and being graded by the teacher. One child has drawn the Mona Lisa and was given an F.

☀️ Happy weekend! 🧪

The problems of paleolithic prodigies...

Mysterious box donated to museum turns out to contain ‘exceptional’ Neanderthal remains The partial remains of at least three Neanderthals were inside, Spanish researchers said.

Mysterious box donated to museum turns out to contain ‘exceptional’ Neanderthal remains news.yahoo.com/mysterious-b...

Modeling of adhesive technology sheds new light on prehistoric cognition Studying prehistoric production processes of birch bark tar using computational modeling reveals the kinds of cognition that were required for the materials produced by Neanderthal and early modern hu...

Modeling of adhesive technology sheds new light on prehistoric cognition phys.org/news/2023-09...

Neanderthal reconstruction by The Kennis Brothers

Justice for Neanderthals!
What the debate about our long-dead cousins reveals about us
www.theguardian.com/science/2023...

Derided as knuckle-draggers, discoveries are setting the record straight. As we rethink Neanderthals, we could learn something of our own humanity.

Did early humans interbreed with a ‘ghost’ population? To explain our genetic diversity, some scientists have suggested that early Homo sapiens mated with an undiscovered species. But new research offers a different explanation.

Did early humans interbreed with "ghost" populations? 🧪
featuring @chrisbstringer.bsky.social , @elliescerri.bsky.social
www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/arti...

A discussion on our genetic diversity and the evidence that early Homo sapiens mated with an as yet, "unknown" species.

John Gurche helps people understand what ancient humans looked like by creating lifelike models based on archaeological finds. The work requires a mix of art... Paleoartist brings back faces from the ancient past

A favorite of mine for a long time,

John Gurche helps people understand what ancient humans looked like by creating lifelike models. The work requires a mix of artistic skill and scientific knowledge.

Paleoartist brings back faces from the ancient past 🧪
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w3U...

A cast of the skull of La Ferrassie 1 on display at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham, UK. Image credit: Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net) via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Roll out the red carpet for La Ferrassie-1.

This skeleton was discovered over a century ago and remains the most complete Neanderthal skull ever recovered.

La Ferrassie Man Is One Of The World's Most Famous Neanderthals 🧪
www.iflscience.com/la-ferrassie...

the M-I4-55 maxilla (a)–(h) Inferior (a), superior (b), anterior (c), and lateral (d) views of the Guercy 3 maxilla (M-I4-55). In (e) through (g), the original specimen is shown with a mirror image. Occlusal views of the associated isolated dentition (h), including (top, left to right) Rdm1 (M-H3-73), RC (M-I4-TNN3), and RM2 (M-F3-215), and (bottom row, left to right) Ldm2 (M-J5-TNN2), Rdm2 (M-G3-251), LC (M-*-TNN2), and LM1 (M-L4-TNN5).

Provides an ontogenetically-based comparative description of the Guercy 3 partial child's maxilla with Rdm2–RM1 and unerupted RI2–RP4 from Baume Moula-Guercy (MIS 5e)

Neanderthal child's maxilla from Baume Moula-Guercy (Soyons, Ardèche, France) 🧪
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A new assemblage of late Neanderthal remains from Cova Simanya (NE Iberia) We present an exceptional collection of 54 late Pleistocene human remains that correspond to at least three Neanderthal individuals from Simanya Gran, the main gallery of Cova Simanya, located in the ...

New Neandertal fossils from NE Spain just published! 54 fossils represents 3 individuals of varying ages 💀🏺 www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

Great to see archeology and genetics coming together on the stage at @ESHE_society 💀🧬 So glad to be part of this team working on artefacts led by @MarieSoressi and @MatthiasMeyer. #eshe2023 #aarhus