Gopesh Jha

#newpreprint: "Climate Shaped the Global Population Structure of Leopards and their Extinction in Europe": www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...! Leopards are charming big cats but there are many mysteries around them. Thread 🧵

A lot more is coming about the technological transitions, Toba's impact, and climatic context.

Hats off to @ekerdoncuff.bsky.social @priyamoorjani et al.'s outstanding work.

Do read the original paper - doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

P.S. A lot to wrap up in so little time, but looking fwd. to 2026.

Deep history from the genomes of India People carrying Neanderthal mixture entered the subcontinent after 50,000 years ago, meeting Denisovans

The genetics of South Asia are coming into focus, helping reveal how fast the avalanche of modern humans got going. This region has more Neanderthal genetic variation than any other, and a unique component of Denisovan ancestry never seen before.

www.johnhawks.net/p/deep-histo...

Jane Goodall, primatologist and friend to chimpanzees, dies at 91 She used her global fame to draw attention to the plight of dwindling chimpanzee populations and, more broadly, to the perils of environmental destruction.

Very sad. One of the world's great human beings.
#JaneGoodall

www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

So excited to announce the lineup of speakers here @heasvienna.bsky.social for the 2025/6 academic year! We have some outstanding speakers for our three seminar series in Archaelogical Science, Ancient Genomics and Human Evolution & the Palaeolithic. All hybrid! Register now at HEAS.at

Aquatic plant wax hydrogen and carbon isotopes in Greenland lakes record shifts in methane cycling during past Holocene warming δ2H values of aquatic plant wax reveal past Holocene warming led to expanded CH4 cycling in lakes across Greenland.

Note that @isotopes.bsky.social (with other methods) found that lakes lost hypolimnetic oxygen in three more (far-away) sectors of Greenland around the same time. Oxygen depletion was apparently widespread, in response to a few degrees of summer warming. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ridge densities for canids and felids for the nine landscapes in which at least one species from each clade was tracked together.

One more conceptual layer of the Bretskyan hierarchy: how organisms map on their range and environments or what is the geometry of their movement (as exemplified by dogs and cats).
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Macroecology
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

YouTube video by Griffith University 12,000-year-old road signs

Had some fun with this one! Based on a publication by @mariaguagnin.bsky.social and our terrific team! 🐪
m.youtube.com/shorts/7Pcec...

The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans Diverse forms of Homo coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene. Whether these fossil humans represent different species or clades is debated. The ~1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 fossil from China is impo...

After two days of reading, thinking, and reading again, I think there are two possible ways to interpret the Yunxian cranium (note that @johnhawks.net and others have already shared some great, and often overlapping ideas): (1/4)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

YouTube video by New Scientist Our common Neanderthal ancestor could be a million years old, says Chris Stringer

youtube.com/watch?v=MA1c...

This non #FlintFriday and #FieldworkFriday, I would like to share this mint-fresh Quartzite handaxe from SE India, likely dating back to Middle Pleistocene.

Yes, it hurts to see that broken tip! Still, one of my best find.

I am field-sick, can't wait to go back.

#Acheulean #India #HumanOrigins

‼️📣Extremely proud to see this great collaborative work out!

Oldest Shell Ornament Workshop in Western Europe at Saint-Césaire: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1...

#Prehistory #Archaeology #Chatelperronian #Shells #Beads #Homosapiens #Neandertal #Ornament

Details of discovery & implications ⏬ 🧵 1/20

More than 500 international scholars attended ISBA 11. Here are many of them looking up at the camera in a large group shot

Thanks to @isbarchaeology.bsky.social and @isba11.bsky.social for a great conference.

I mentioned the legacy of Henk Kars of VU who established ISBA

Geoarchaeology closed. Here is the link to the petition to save Earth Sciences @vuamsterdam.bsky.social

www.change.org/p/red-aardwe...

What a week! 🎉 Big thanks to @isba11.bsky.social for hosting an incredible ISBA conference — so well organized and full of great science.

Classic Maya response to multiyear seasonal droughts in Northwest Yucatán, Mexico Stalagmite record reveals 1- to 13-year droughts in NW Yucatán from 871 to 1021 CE, a time of profound Maya cultural change.

Interested in #Maya history, #climate change, #stalagmites and #drought, and the #SYP autosampler? Read the latest in our detailed work on a sample from #Tzabnah cave! 😎 kudos to all our collaborators in #Mexico!
@andy-baker.bsky.social @mwclimatesci.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Job Alerts!🚨 We are looking to fill three Independent Junior Research Group Leader positions in the 'HUMAN ORIGINS' Cluster of Excellence at the University of Tübingen
Application deadline: Sept. 10, Starting Jan. 1, 2026

1. Genotype-Phenotype interactions:
uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

Hominins on Sulawesi during the Early Pleistocene - Nature Early Pleistocene artefacts at Calio suggest that Sulawesi was populated by hominins at around the same time as Flores, if not earlier.

Stone tools from Sulawesi at least a million years old may be even more ancient than those found on Flores, suggesting an even earlier presence of hominins on Wallacea www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations @nataliaeguez.bsky.social

From the archives:

Climate co-benefits of tiger conservation: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ancient DNA reveals genetic admixture in China during tiger evolution: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) beds as a Late Pleistocene isochron in the Indian subcontinent? New geochronological and sedimentological insights The ~75 ka Young Toba super-eruption was a catastrophic extreme event that spewed vast quantities of volcanic ash and aerosols and is argued to have caused a drastic volcanic winter, climatic upheava....

Paper alert 📄

Led by Dr. Anil Devara.

That ~75,000-year-old Toba ash layer (YTT) in India? Our research shows it is not necessary if YTT is isochron! We found YTT at MVP (site) is significantly (40,000 years) younger than ~74ka mark.

Glad to be part of this work!

doi.org/10.1002/jqs....

A 150,000-year lacustrine record of the Indo-Australian monsoon from northern Australia Nearly two thirds of the world's population depend on monsoon rainfall, with monsoon failure and extreme precipitation affecting societies for millenn…

A 150,000-year lacustrine record of the Indo-Australian monsoon from northern Australia www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I love the title - cool paper!

Congratulations @martamlahr.bsky.social

So much to think about after "Not all that glitters is green" by Verónica Zuccarelli Freire. A powerful reminder that the costs of the energy transition are not shared equally, especially in the #Andes. True climate action requires environmental justice.

#ClimateJustice #IndigenousKnowledge

My inner self whispers,

"Incredible! This could be a living example of a 'primal throwback,' a manifestation of our ancient, arboreal instincts!"

I need a vacation! Probably after PhD🤔

Nós na Evolução | 5. Germinando a Amazônia Alô, Ciência? · Episode

Rethinking how #agriculture evolved. A new "We in #Evolution" podcast explores the sophisticated tech of #Amazonian gardens— a system of #exchange, #culture & #biodiversity, not machines. A fascinating listen.

Podcast features our very own, Laura Pereira Furquim

open.spotify.com/episode/0w2E...

Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...

We published a new paper on enamel paleoproteomics from teeth up to 18 million years old from the Turkana Basin in Kenya. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...

New paper alert! Led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, we look at refugia for baboons in the Pleistocene and Holocene, offering a potential analogue for early hominins where climatic tolerances are shared.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

300,000-year-old wooden tools from Gantangqing, southwest China Evidence of Early and Middle Pleistocene wooden implements is exceptionally rare, and existing evidence has been found only in Africa and western Eurasia. We report an assemblage of 35 wooden implemen...

300,000-year-old wooden tools from Gantangqing, southwest China 300,000-year-old wooden tools from Gantangqing, southwest China | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Interested in how ancient genomes are providing insights into the our evolutionary past? @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social and I are excited about the great program coming together for this meeting in London in November! Register now to join us!