The birth of farming
The advent of farming was a key moment in human history. By intensively exploiting the surrounding land early farmers could gather enough food to stay in one place all year round, allowing […]
Category Archives: Prehistory
How smart were our fire-taming ancestors?
The discovery of fire was a key moment in the human prehistory. With fire our ancestors would’ve been able to cook food, making digestion more efficient. The benefits of this […]
Our ancestors didn’t innovate – Misguided Mondays
It’s a common creationist mantra that with the same evidence you can arrive at very different conclusions based on the “assumptions” through which you interpret the evidence. The unstated conclusion […]
Could Neanderthals Throw #2
Neanderthals were very similar to us; even being so close genetically that we were able to interbreed. But it’s their differences that are fascinating because they suggest that all it […]
The social brain hypothesis and crows
The social brain hypothesis posits that one of the reasons large brains developed is to allow us to live well in large social groups. With a large brain we could […]
Cave art: A creationist hoax
In 1879 Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was conducting an archaeological excavation of the entrance to Altamira Cave, Spain. He’d just returned from a French conference on prehistory and was determined to make some […]
Did Australopithecus make stone tools?
The first stone tools manufactured by our ancestors were part of the Oldowan industry. This toolkit consists of small sharp flakes which could be used for a wide range of […]
How to make an Oldowan flake – Friday Factoid
The Oldowan toolkit is the oldest known set of stone tools, being manufactured by our ancestors as early as 2.6 million years ago. The toolkit consists of several types of tools […]
The movius line – Friday Factoid
The human lineage evolved in Africa until ~1.8 million years ago when Homo erectus strode forth into the rest of the world. H. erectus was the first hominin to have the basic modern […]
Caring Homo erectus
Empathy is an important human emotion, forming the foundation of the social emotions which underpin our communities. Our desire to care for one another – often at great personal cost […]
