Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes

The photo here is quite something

oxfordre.com/neuroscience...

Just found out that sperm whales make their clicks with *a pair of lips* inside their heads 🤯

(actually inside one of their nasal passages, the other is used only for breathing, the clicks reflect twice inside their heads to amplify them before being 'beamed' out)

Further evidence that games can be understood stratigraphically

now wondering what is the best real archaeological analogue for this

I consulted quite widely on the science, so not sure why I was credited in that way. They also did not include my title.

I don't think the interpretation given for the El Sidron site (where body processing and cannibalism occurred) as a "brutal massacre" was based in evidence.

We didn’t conquer the world alone. This is humanity’s untold origin story | BBC Science Focus Magazine We’re discovering there were more characters, and more acts, in the tale of how Homo sapiens spread across the globe.

Short article I wrote* on recent advances in the story of early Homo sapiens is now available online!

*commissioned as accompanying BBC Human series, although tbh I did not love their Neanderthal episode :-(

www.sciencefocus.com/science/huma...

🏺 This book mostly makes me wonder what image Sally Rosen Binford might have chosen of herself if she'd written her own archaeological magnum opus

(of course, one might argue whether she would ever have chosen to write such a book or centre herself on its cover in the first place...)

🧪🦣🏺 Interesting, wondering if applicable to the Altamura #Neanderthal, and also if taphonomy of concretions matters, e.g. an exposed body covered in calcite vs. one gaining concretions within sediment

This is so dangerous

Also, if you're "in bed with flu", it's almost certainly Covid.

"Sharing the Gospel" apparently means a 100-strong crowd blocking a road (legally?) and yelling "Jesus Saves" at the top of their lungs while staring ahead, unsmiling.

🧪🦣🏺 Strong criticisms of recent study claiming super-ancient origin forlineage leading to H. sapiens, which is contradicted by DNA that points strongly to a last common ancestor more like 600,000 years ago rather than +1 million.
Also, geopolitics & nationalism often intersect with #HumanOrigins

This is is course good news but its tempered by so much carnage.
I still think a single democratic state offers a way forward, with a long term reconciliation process centring on building a future for all children in the region.

He deserves the widest adoration
(I have no idea if he was in personality some sort of cad or sociopath so that comment is purely for aesthetics 😆)

they give you a 30 day trial (which isn't consecutive but cumulative) so you can really try it out

well can't vouch for it creating BETTER writing habits but it helps me produce MORE chaos, and find things WITHIN my chaos 😂
seriously, absolutely worth the money just for the search function, but the double-pane is so useful, and ability to see and organise all files (chapters, sub-sections)

Upping the game, presenting one of my favourite #HistoricalHotties, Holbein's sketch of Simon George, 1530s (I much prefer it to the finished portrait). 🗃️

🙄 I wouldn't acknowledge my spellchecker in my books any more than I would my pen or my keyboard. That's because they are inanimate tools. not colleagues or collaborators.

[I might however acknowledge *the human developers* of Scrivener, as creators of this fantastic writing project software!]

yes the power differential is always an issue with this kind of context

Noticed the other week that there's not nearly enough #HistoricalHotties content here on Bluesky, so am posting one of the OGs, Antinous
(amirite @emmasouthon.bsky.social )

In @thetimes.com letters page today

"Turnips and radishes outraged"

not weird

🧪🏺🗃️ Did not know that the brilliant HERI does podcasts!
Series 1 also sounds excellent, on colonial anthropology in the Kalahari

typo- Palaeolithic, not Neolithic :-)

1. On political gaslighting. Yesterday Jenrick defended his comments on Handsworth by lashing out at 2 pieces of work I was centrally involved with to imply it's people like me who are divisive, not him...

Looks fab

🏺 And of course, Anthropology including Archaeology is so powerful because we use all kinds of data and analytical methods which bring together humanities AND sciences.

Anthropology should replace RE as mandatory at state schools: faiths are just one facet of the extraordinary ways people have chosen past & present to organise their lives and express identity - from households to states, craft to economy, or dealing with death. Anthropology opens minds & hearts.

English, Anthropology, Sociology... removing these options for the majority would of course help the class war substantially, by preventing most people from learning more in understanding and appreciating the real diversity of humanity, culture and its communication