john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Canine non-reduction

Mon, 2009-10-12 11:49 -- John Hawks

Canine size in a pair-bonded primate:

Gibbon teeth

A gibbon skull. Creative commons license, courtesy of Flickr user estherase.

After last night's Ardi program, I've received a number of e-mails (and one phone call) about Lovejoy's pair-bonding-led-to-canine-reduction-led-to-bipedality theory. Just a quick visual to remind us that things are not generally so simple.

Tags: 
C. Owen Lovejoy
sexual selection

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Denisova

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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.