Dr. Abigail Desmond

Illustration of a tattoo depicting two deer being attacked by three big cats; two with stripes, one with spots.

Tattoo from the preserved body of a Siberian ice mummy, from the Iron Age Pazyryk culture of the Altai Mountains. Depicting two tigers and a leopard attacking two deer, it shows the sophisticated methods of Pazyryk tattooers #InternationalSnowLeopardDay

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

There are few greater joys than being employed to read stuff like this

In a paper under review @abigaildesmond.bsky.social and I argue that self-directed tool use should be the most common form of novel (and possibly temporary) tool use, because of the immediacy of the feedback and the stability of the self as an environment. Fingers crossed it survives review!

🧪🪮🐼

Louis Pasteur’s scientific discoveries in the 19th century revolutionized medicine and continue to save the lives of millions today On World Rabies Day – which is also the anniversary of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur’s death – a virologist reflects on the achievements of this visionary scientist.

What do you know about Louis Pasteur who developed the first effective rabies vaccine back in 1885?

One of the most brilliant minds and scientists of all time, writes Rodney E. Rohde. Pasteur died on this day in 1995, and #WorldRabiesDay is marked on the anniversary.

buff.ly/56EB92l

Yunxian 2, is that you?! 💀

I’m sure they’re fondly remembering a previous joke

First day of my lecture course on the evolution of human technology, and my students just voted to have a laptop-free class. Sometimes, all is right with the world.

Experimental evidence for the efficacy of transversal hafting of backed segments as arrowheads Backed segments in quartz from the Howiesons Poort industry of Southern Africa (65–60 ka) have been interpreted as tips of arrows. Nevertheless, sever…

Prehistoric stone tools were often hafted, but we only find the lithics not the wood/bone part of tools. So it is not always clear how stones were hafted.

We tested two ways of hafting the same type of arrow tip, shooting into ballistics gel. Very mythbusters!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yes!

Always a pleasure to see hominin graffiti. Tbilisi, Georgia.

78,000-year-old footprints from Neanderthal man, child and toddler discovered on beach in Portugal A Neanderthal trackway discovered in Portugal shows how an adult male and two children hunted for food 78,000 years ago.

"It was early in the morning of a sunny day, with perfect light for checking tracks," Neto de Carvalho told Live Science in an email. 🏺🧪

YouTube video by Integrating ZooMS and Zooarchaeology (IZAZ) IZAZ 'Ask Us Anything' Online Forum June 2025

Are you kept awake at night, wondering whence your bags of archaeological bone fragments? Is your child ZooMS curious? Check out this mMass-ively cool AMA where we address your pressing proteomic problems. youtu.be/loAgeUuK08g?...

What can we tell about Stone Age strategies by identifying critters’ bones? Join me online tomorrow for an archaeological ZooMS AMA!

True for the individual, and true for evolution.

Super happy to be a panelist at this upcoming ZooMS webinar - join us on June 30 for a fun archaeological AMA!

Delighted to see our paper on the evolutionary history of the CCR5Δ32 deletion published this week in @cellpress.bsky.social. Work led by @ravnkirstine.bsky.social, Leonardo Cobuccio and Rasa Muktupavela, and co-supervised by me and @simorasmu.bsky.social. See 🧵 for main findings...

Amazing, congratulations Evan!

"He vexes my goose-herd": What To Read Next If You Liked the Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir Everybody loves the complaint tablet to Ea-Nasir – the question is, what will you read next, after you’ve finished the original series?

"He takes a pledge from me and vexes my goose-herd."

"The letter you wrote to Menon about Kallikon's money has been eaten by mice."

"We find that 6 jugs of the wine are missing."

What To Read Next If You Liked the Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir

www.thechatner.com/p/he-vexes-m...

Molecular analysis of a hominin mandible from Taiwan reveals the lineage and sex of the individual.

A fossil Pleistocene-age hominin jawbone discovered in Taiwan has now been identified as belonging to a Denisovan, finds a new study in Science.

The results provide direct molecular evidence that Denisovans occupied diverse climates and offer new insights into this hominin lineage. scim.ag/4joSUBh

Laughed out loud reading archaeologists characterized - by a physical anthropologist - as “… the senile playboys of science rooting in the rubbish heaps of antiquity.” Subtitle: If Earnest Hooton is insulting you, you must be cool. From Trigger’s “A History of Archaeological Thought”.

Illustration of bonobos walking and climbing

I could not wait any longer to share the finished illustration of bonobos.
Commissioned by @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social
#SciArt #mammals #apes #primates #art

How evolution favoured costly and frivolous animal play | Aeon Essays Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play?

I am very happy to share this piece with you, exploring the link between inventiveness and play in nonhuman animals. It was written with care and a sincere desire to convey what science and philosophy can teach us about this fascinating topic.
I hope you enjoy reading it!

aeon.co/essays/how-e...

Leslie White (1942) on human tool use. Simply breathtaking.

So pumped to announce this fabulous conspiracy-in-progress 📖

Strategy and Ideology through ZooMS: Insights from Palaeolithic and prehistoric bone tools ZooMS (Zooarchaeoology by Mass Spectrometry) is a biomolecular technique for determining the taxon of origin for archaeological bone and osseous tool …

Tools - as manifestations of human strategic thinking - can tell us a lot about the people that made them. My new paper (out today!) offers some interpretive frameworks for ancient bone tool analysis.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Diversos taxones vegetales en herramientas de percusión de 780 ka: Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel: alimentos de distintos paisajes, estaciones y modos de trabajo.
Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools https://buff.ly/3X1ThZB

Honored to announce I’m writing a book! We understand the importance of stone tools in the Stone Age. But what about socks? Rope? Water bottles? Boats? How did we go from knocking rocks together to the Saturn V rocket? This work takes a long view perspective on how the things we make, make us.

This is figure 5, which shows human induced modifications on cranial and postcranial remains.

A study in Scientific Reports of remains from the Maszycka Cave from 18,000 years ago finds evidence of cannibalism among these Magdalenian groups. https://go.nature.com/4hwUqAQ 🧪 🏺