Seth Chagi (World of Paleoanthropology🏺)

(Her boss’s name appears 1 million times)

Interesting you seem to figure it out despite that good for you! 😂

The Pivot Point: How a Magnetic Flip in Morocco Just Rewrote the Root of Our Species By Seth Chagi

773,000 years ago, the Earth's magnetic field flipped—and our ancestors were there. 🌍⚡️

New fossils from Morocco anchor the root of the Homo sapiens lineage to this "Pivot Point." We're looking at a much older Moroccan story than we realized.

Read: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

omo erectus was the original globetrotter. 🌍 Appearing ~2Ma, they were the first to leave Africa, reaching East Asia with a toolkit (Acheulean) that lasted over a million years.

Was their "killer app" the use of fire, or their anatomy built for distance? 🦴🔥

Let's discuss.

The Pivot Point: How a Magnetic Flip in Morocco Just Rewrote the Root of Our Species By Seth Chagi

773,000 years ago, the Earth's magnetic field flipped—and our ancestors were there. 🌍⚡️

New fossils from Morocco anchor the root of the Homo sapiens lineage to this "Pivot Point." We're looking at a much older Moroccan story than we realized.

Read: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

One of my favorite pieces! I argue rock art is "survival software"—vital for symbolic behavior research.

Deep history: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

📢 Call for Papers: UISPP XXI World Congress (Poland, 2026)

Session S-11H: Foraging Figures to Fish and Fjords. Exploring the prehistoric engraved/painted rock art of Northern Europe.

⏳ Deadline: Feb 28, 2026
📍 Poznań, Poland
🔗 Submit via the conference portal!

#Archaeology #RockArt #DeepHistory

A Neanderthal time capsule from Grotta Guattari Excavations of a new chamber reveal an ancient floor with more than a dozen new Neanderthal fossil remains.

New excavations at the Grotta Guattari, just south of Rome, have yielded beautiful new Neanderthal fossils. They may add a lot to our knowledge of how Neanderthals maintained their populations as they fled the advance of the ice sheets.

www.johnhawks.net/p/a-neandert...

Art as Survival Software: How Deep History Symbols Conquered the World When we walk into a museum today, we see "Art." We see aesthetic choices, talent, and perhaps a bit of decoration.

Neanderthals were "specialists," but Homo sapiens was a "master weed." 🌿
We used symbolism as a tool to colonize new niches and maintain distant social safety nets. Art wasn't just aesthetic; it was an ecological strategy.

Read more: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

🦴 I’m joining @TheChildrensHour at the end of the month! We’re talking Neanderthals, ancient art, and why "Deep History" is way cooler than "prehistory." Video available soon—stay tuned! 🌍 #Paleoanthropology #Neanderthals

Chronology is the ultimate paleoanthropology drama. A new dating method can revolutionize our understanding of our ancestors. Discover why “when” matters as much as “who” in “The Battlefield of Chronology.”

Join the front lines with the paid tier!

Link: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

YouTube video by World of Paleoanthropology Paleodiet is a lie? What our ancestors REALLY ate.

What’s for dinner? 🦴 Dr. Peter Ungar joins The Story of Us to reveal how fossil teeth act as "foodprints" of our ancestors' lives.

Dive into the "biospheric buffet" and see how diet made us human: youtu.be/pjEQueTHVzg

Subscribe to join the journey! 🌍✨

#Paleoanthropology #TheStoryOfUs

Sad that this is triggering to so many

Think you know the Neanderthal story? Think again. 🦴 New 2025 research shows our ancestors and Neanderthals interbred as early as 140k years ago in the Levant! It wasn’t a "replacement"—it was an absorption. We are a mosaic. 🧬

#Paleoanthropology #DeepHistory #HumanOrigins #WOPA

Image: John Hawks

Think Neanderthals were simple? Think again. This isn't random bashing. This is controlled precision. Knapping flint with a hammerstone requires planning, skill, and a deep understanding of materials. They were masters of their craft. 🧠🔨 #Neanderthal #StoneAge #Archaeology #HumanOrigins

An identity for the inscrutable Homo habilis Click on the article title to read more.

"By dint of incessant repetition, the species name Homo habilis has become firmly entrenched in the paleoanthropological lexicon." What an opening sentence. 🏺🧪https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.70145?campaign=woletoc

YouTube video by World of Paleoanthropology Paleodiet is a lie? What our ancestors REALLY ate.

What’s for dinner? 🦴 Dr. Peter Ungar joins The Story of Us to reveal how fossil teeth act as "foodprints" of our ancestors' lives.

Dive into the "biospheric buffet" and see how diet made us human: youtu.be/pjEQueTHVzg

Subscribe to join the journey! 🌍✨

#Paleoanthropology #TheStoryOfUs

Chronology is the ultimate paleoanthropology drama. A new dating method can revolutionize our understanding of our ancestors. Discover why “when” matters as much as “who” in “The Battlefield of Chronology.”

Join the front lines with the paid tier!

Link: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

YouTube video by World of Paleoanthropology Paleodiet is a lie? What our ancestors REALLY ate.

The wait is over! 🚀 The newest episode of The Story of Us has officially arrived. Dive into the journey that connects us all and see what’s next in the narrative. 🌍

Watch here: youtu.be/pjEQueTHVzg

Don’t forget to hit that Subscribe button and turn on notifications so you never miss a chapter! 🔔

Think you know when things happened in deep history? Think again. Chronology is a battlefield where theories clash and dates shift. 🌍

Dive into the chaos and find out why timing matters more than you think. Subscribe to join the front lines!

Read & Sub: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

🦴 I’m joining @TheChildrensHour at the end of the month! We’re talking Neanderthals, ancient art, and why "Deep History" is way cooler than "prehistory." Video available soon—stay tuned! 🌍 #Paleoanthropology #Neanderthals

Ancient art wasn't "art for art's sake"—it was survival tech. 🦴

My new post covers:
✅ Neanderthals at Cueva de los Aviones (115k years ago!)
✅ Symbols as "exograms" (external storage)
✅ Art as a "digital handshake" for social networking

Join the flow:
open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

Ancient art wasn't "art for art's sake"—it was survival tech. 🦴

My new post covers:
✅ Neanderthals at Cueva de los Aviones (115k years ago!)
✅ Symbols as "exograms" (external storage)
✅ Art as a "digital handshake" for social networking

Join the flow:
open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

Black-and-white engraved illustration labeled “Fig. 3” showing the side view of a cast of a partial human skull from the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf. The skullcap is long and low with a pronounced brow ridge at the front and a receding forehead, tapering toward the back with a rounded occipital area. Lettered labels mark anatomical features including the superciliary ridge and glabella, the coronal suture, the apex of the lambdoid suture, and the occipital protuberance. A caption beneath reads: “Side view of the cast of a part of a human skull from a cave in the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf.”

Book page from an 1863 scientific volume showing two engraved views of a large flint handaxe labeled “Fig. 8.” The tool is teardrop-shaped and bifacially flaked, with broad, symmetrical edges and visible chipped facets. The left view shows the full face of the implement; the right view shows a narrow edge-on profile emphasizing its thickness. Surrounding text identifies it as a “Flint implement from St. Acheul, near Amiens, of the spear-head shape,” reproduced at half size, about seven and a half inches long. The page header reads “Flint Implements in Valley of the Somme.”

Charles Lyell's book Antiquity of Man was published #OnThisDay in 1863. It argued that humans once lived alongside extinct animals like mammoths, meaning we have a deep past. It also examined the original Neanderthal.

Seth Chagi | Substack Essays on deep history, human origins, Neanderthals, and ancient art. Focused on evidence, ambiguity, and ethical science communication—because the past is stranger and more human than clean stories a...

Human origins is the ultimate "Deep History." 🌍 If you enjoy exploring the evolution of symbolic behavior and the roots of our species, my Substack is the place for you. Accessible, ethical, and grounded in research.

Subscribe here: substack.com/@deephistory...

Art as Survival Software: How Deep History Symbols Conquered the World When we walk into a museum today, we see "Art." We see aesthetic choices, talent, and perhaps a bit of decoration.

Neanderthals were "specialists," but Homo sapiens was a "master weed." 🌿
We used symbolism as a tool to colonize new niches and maintain distant social safety nets. Art wasn't just aesthetic; it was an ecological strategy.

Read more: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

Art as Survival Software: How Deep History Symbols Conquered the World When we walk into a museum today, we see "Art." We see aesthetic choices, talent, and perhaps a bit of decoration.

Art wasn't just "art"—it was survival software. 🎨💻

It allowed our ancestors to offload data onto the environment (exograms) and build social networks to buffer risk.

New deep dive into how symbols conquered the world: open.substack.com/pub/deephist...

Chauvet Cave proves that art didn’t "evolve" from simple to complex; it arrived with a bang. These 30k+ year old rhinos show incredible perspective and shading.

We aren't looking at "primitive" work—we’re looking at our deep history in motion. 🦏🐎

What does this art say to you?

Rock Art has, by far; been my favorite class so far!