Meat eating led to faster hominin reproduction

Increased meat consumption was an important part of human evolution. In 7 million years we went from meat making up ~3% of our diet to at least ~20% nowadays. Not counting vegetarians of course. Such an increase provided us with a range of benefits. Better nutrition allowed for increased brain size; we could expand into … Continue reading »

Neanderthals were alive recently – misguided mondays

The scientific consensus regarding neanderthals is that they’re a distinct cousin of humans that died out ~30,000 years ago.  However, there is still a lot of debate concerning these facts. How distinct were they? Were they different enough to be considered a separate species or were they just a sub-species of human? Did they die … Continue reading »

The impersonal past and present

One of the more feared words in archaeology is “palimsest.” It refers to the principle that a single layer of sediment (or stratum) is not always made by a single event. In reality that layer could be the product of many years of deposition The net result of all this is that the actions of … Continue reading »

Neanderthals didn’t wear shoes

A while a go I wrote about how it seems that humans and neanderthals were wearing hard soled shoes frequently by the Upper Palaeolithic (~50-15 thousand years ago). They worked this out by looking at their foot bones and seeing if they had changed in a manner consistent with wearing shoes. By that date their … Continue reading »

Recent human evolution: height changes and the ice age – Friday factoid #4

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) occured 26,000-20,000 years ago and was – as the name might suggest – the last time glaciers reached their full extent. The LGM was harsh, with rainfall decreasing by up to 69% in some places breaking up the Amazon rainforest. Meanwhile sea levels dropped dramatically as water was trapped in … Continue reading »

Caring neanderthals

In The Descent of Man Charles Darwin laid out his thoughts regarding humans. At length he discussed our nature, behaviour and evolution. But of all he had observed around the world one aspect of humanity stood out to him as the “noblest.” The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly … Continue reading »

First fire wasn’t 1 million years ago – misguided mondays

For those of you keeping up with this blog, I recently wrote about the discovery of fire being controlled by hominins 1 million years ago, ~700,000 years earlier than previously thought. For those of you not keeping up (or simply fancy a refresher), here is a link. However, it turns out even this latest figure … Continue reading »

How did food sharing start?

Food sharing is an important human behaviour that enables our modern, complex society to function as it does. Since food is distributed throughout the group everyone does not have to spend their time farming or hunting. This frees up their time to do other things, like become specialist tool makers or write entertaining blogs on … Continue reading »

Pro-evolution bill irritates creationists – misguided mondays

There is legislature worming its way through Tennessee which has got the goat of many of the pro-evolution crowd as it opens the door for the promotion of creationism in public schools. On the other side we have a “pro” evolution bill in Kentucky (and other places) that requires more time to be spent discussing … Continue reading »