Mastodawn

People were sleeping on carefully maintained grass beds at a South African cave 200,000 years ago — burning them clean, refreshing them, laying them on ash. New microscopic research shows the practice lasted 150,000+ years. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #PaleoAnthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/beds-of-grass-and-ash-200000-years

Beds of Grass and Ash: 200,000 Years of Sleeping Arrangements at Border Cave

A new microscopic study traces how Middle Stone Age people at a South African rock shelter constructed, maintained, and repeatedly burned their bedding across more than 150 millennia

Anthropology.net

NewsletterTF 1d ago

Ancient Teeth Unveil Intensified Plant Use in Sri Lankan Rainforests Millennia Before Agriculture

Did ancient humans eat plants before farming? New research in Sri Lanka shows people used rainforest plants for food 20,000 years ago.

#srilanka, #archaeology, #ancientdiet, #rainforesthistory, #humanevolution

https://newsletter.tf/ancient-sri-lanka-rainforest-diet-study/

NewsletterTF 1d ago

Scientists studied 81 teeth from Sri Lanka to learn about ancient diets. They found that humans ate more plants long before farming started.

#srilanka, #archaeology, #ancientdiet, #rainforesthistory, #humanevolution
https://newsletter.tf/ancient-sri-lanka-rainforest-diet-study/

Ancient Sri Lanka rainforest diet study shows plant use 20000 years ago

Did ancient humans eat plants before farming? New research in Sri Lanka shows people used rainforest plants for food 20,000 years ago.

NewsletterTF

Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦1d ago

“The gap between the rate of #humanevolution and the rate of #microbial #evolution, Eren said, is like ‘the difference between a drifting tectonic plate and an F-16 fighter jet’.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Our Warming Planet Is a Petri ...

Our Warming Planet Is a Petri Dish for New and Deadly Microbes

“Flesh-eating” bacteria is spreading. Infectious fungi are emerging. Microbiomes may never be the same. Shayla Love reports on how climate change is transforming the “unseen majority” of life on Earth.

The New Yorker

Anthropology.net 2d ago

Archaeologists in Romania just uncovered a 350 sq meter “mega-structure” built 6,000 years ago by the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, a society with large settlements but almost no evidence of rulers or elites. Was this prehistoric democracy in action? #Archaeology #Prehistory #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-6000-year-old-assembly-hall-and

A 6,000-Year-Old Assembly Hall and What It Says About Prehistoric Democracy

Archaeologists have uncovered a massive communal building that adds new weight to an old debate: can large human communities govern themselves without rulers?

Anthropology.net

Anthropology.net 2d ago

Neanderthal DNA helped us fight RNA viruses — but a new genomic study finds it’s linked to higher loads of persistent DNA viruses like EBV in people today. One ancient haplotype has been declining in frequency for 10,000 years. Evolution catching up. #NeanderthalDNA #HumanEvolution #Archaeogenomics https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-neanderthal-immune-system-was

The Neanderthal Immune System Was Not Built for EBV

Archaic DNA that once helped us fight RNA viruses appears to leave carriers more vulnerable to a different class of persistent pathogens — and the genome is slowly cleaning it up.

Anthropology.net

Anthropology.net 3d ago

Nine fossil teeth from a collapsed cave in southeastern France reveal that Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals were far more regionally variable than linear evolutionary models suggest. #Paleoanthropology #Neanderthals #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/nine-teeth-from-payre-and-the-uneven

Nine Teeth from Payre and the Uneven Shape of Neanderthal Evolution

A new morphometric analysis of Middle Pleistocene dental remains from southeastern France finds regional variation where a simple evolutionary progression was expected.

Anthropology.net

Anthropology.net 5d ago

A 100,000-year-old Ethiopian site just yielded 3 partial Homo sapiens skeletons — one possibly cremated, one with predator bite marks, one suddenly buried. Rare open-air preservation is rewriting what we know about early MSA behavior. #Paleoanthropology #MiddleStoneAge #HumanEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/three-bodies-on-a-floodplain-what

Three Bodies on a Floodplain: What a 100,000-Year-Old Site in Ethiopia Is Telling Us About Early Homo sapiens

A rare open-air site in the Afar Rift preserves stone tools, animal bones, and three partial human skeletons — each with a different story about how they ended up in the ground.

Anthropology.net

The Inquisitive Biologist May 23

This week's #NewBooks at the library: Who is excited about the next few books he will be reviewing?

- After an impressive debut, I am looking forward to reading Cal Flyn's second book, The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness, published by HarperCollins.

- Time for another deep dive into the history of my favourite discipline, #EvolutionaryBiology. I really enjoyed Costa's annotated version of Wallace's notebook, and am very excited about delving into this annotated version of #CharlesDarwin's The Descent of Man, beautifully published here by @princetonupress. Expect me to go dark for a while, it's over 760 pages!

- And for context, I will be adding a review of Jeremy DeSilva's A Most Interesting Problem: What #Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about #HumanEvolution, published a few years back, also by Princeton.

#Books #Bookstodon #Scicomm #Evolution #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci @bookstodon

Virtual Organization Advisors May 23

Human Evolution 2-22-2222 ::: Spawning a New Era of Decentralized Imagination

Pierre Coupet, architect of the Human Evolution 2-22-2222 Initiative, introduces mankind to the concept of a New Era of Decentralized Imagination. Proceed to Virtual Organization Management Institute Repository for details.