Being able to recognise yourself in the mirror is a sign you’re self-aware, which is a key step on the road towards theory of mind and other complex thought processes. It has long been thought that monkeys cannot recognise themselves in the mirror, or can they?
This post first appeared at The Advance Apes on 1/31/13 One of the most important traits we’ve developed over the course of human evolution is our exceptionally large brains. Brain […]
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 […]
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 […]
Australopithecus afarensis is a bipedal human ancestor which lived in Africa from 3.9 – 2.9 million years ago. It’s particularly notable for being the first hominin to have a human-like […]
Our lineage’s fossil record is especially sparse between 4 – 8 million years ago. From that time period we have roughly 50 fragmented specimens making up only 6 or so […]
A “farmer curve” is a graph which charts the chance of an event occurring against how bad that event will be, in effect calculating how risky a particular situation is. […]
Answers in Genesis have “refuted” this post. I offer a counter-refutation here Answers in Genesis runs the (in)famous Creation Museum, where they expound the Biblical account of how the earth […]
StW 89 is the designation of a recently described 2-2.6 million year old second metatarsal from the Sterkfontein formation in South Africa. As a metatarsal, it’s an important fossil since […]
Some species can be defined as “mosaic.” In other words, that they possess a combination of features from two other species. These species are particularly useful, revealing evolutionary relationships between […]
