john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Evolang reports

Thu, 2010-04-22 08:30 -- John Hawks

Edmund Blair Bolles has been reporting on the Evolang 2010 conference. The conference is a meeting of people interested in the biological origins of language, and happened in Utrecht last week. I was really sorry that this ran against the AAPA meetings, as I really would like to have gone. At any rate, I was a reviewer for some of the proposed presentations and hope that I will make it next time around.

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.