john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

The price of erudition

Thu, 2010-08-26 13:04 -- John Hawks

Did you know that the three-volume Handbook of Paleoanthropology is a thousand dollars from Amazon?

A thousand dollars! I thought that the prices of edited volumes had gotten out of control, but wow! I like open access because I know when I write something, I want people to be able to read it without worrying about how to afford it.

Anyway, it looks like the books can be had for $500 from other sellers. Don't know why Amazon is so high. I was looking for one of the articles, and couldn't figure out why the library keeps them on permanent reserve. Guess now I know -- they're too expensive to replace!

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.