About the blog
“EvoAnth” is a shortening of the subject name “Evolutionary Anthropology” which is the study of humans and their evolution.
People often refer to this as “Biological Anthropology” – the study of human biology and associated evolutionary changes – but in reality that is only one aspect of evolutionary anthropology. It also studies our technology, behaviour, beliefs and any other aspect of humanity which has been influenced by our evolutionary heritage.
This blog is an attempt to spread the knowledge evolutionary anthropology has gained to as many people as possible. After all, everyone evolved.
About me
I am an undergraduate at university studying, as you’ve probably guessed, evolutionary anthropology.
What motivated me to start this blog was an experience I had whilst giving a presentation to a group of school students about my university. They were apparently interested in biological sciences and so appropriatly the presentation was given by university students studying that. And me.
Yet I got the most questions. Despite the fact there were undergraduates doing the degree they wanted to do they were asking me questions on the origin of art, development of technology. People are clearly interested in where they came from, yet there are all too few sources providing this information.
So I resolved to start this blog and do my part to spread the information around.
We get the picture that human ancestors were, some at least, relatively small and weak, with unimpressive teeth. Obviously these human ancestors had a toolkit of artifacts and behaviors which allowed them to become ancestors. Here is my question. I think no modern apes can throw as hard and accurately as some humans can. Select people make big bucks by throwing hard and accurately, therefore it is likely the anatomical and physiological aspects of hard and accurate throwing are well know. Has any one studied whether any of our ancestors could throw hard and accurately? I can picture a carnivore looking at a group of Australopithecines and thinking, “If I go after them, I will have several 100 MPH, quarter pound rocks bounced off my head.”
I know about some research into whether certain tools would be good for throwing and bits about whether neanderthals could throw well, but nothing specifically on this issue of australopiths throwing random rocks. I’ll look into it, maybe make a post on it at some point in the future
I just wanted to say thank you for posting on EveryMagicalDay. I followed your comments back here and am ecstatic to find a blog I will look forward to reading as much as this!
If you enjoyed the discussion over there might I recommend this post I did earlier which covers pretty much the same ground, although with a slightly different take I hope you find equally as interesting.
http://evoanth.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/the-origin-of-religion/
Oh Thank you. I look forward to reading this.
This is a great blog! I’ve really missed reading about new discoveries from before anatomically modern humans so this is a great and straight-forward digest.
Here you go. Take a look at this and get back to us!
http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2012/04/did-language-emerge-from-neural-systems.html
Fine motor control is very important to language, but to what extent does it overlap between different parts of the body. If I “evolved” the ability to move my legs with more finesse, would it also improve my ability to control my thumb? Or is controlling different parts distinct in the brain? Or if they are linked, is it because one improves the other or are they symptoms of something else improving both?
All of these questions and more would have to be answered before this research is considered something other than “promising, but only preliminary”
I may discuss it on the blog at a later date
I wonder about handedness. i am right handed, and my right hand can do things for which my left hand has no clue. On the other hand
, both hands attended typing class at the same time, and type equally well; maybe the left is a hair better.
Handedness was discussed at HOBET and I was surprised to learn that the dominance of right handedness in the population appears to have been a relatively recent development; within the last 1 my or so.
If I can find the original source for the presentation (hopefully it includes some more info on the development of handedness) it I’ll try and write about it this Wednesday as a “wondering Wednesday” post. Or is there something more specific you were interested in?
Love. This. Blog! I’m so glad you found me! lol
Well I’m glad you like it.