john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

New pre-Neandertal from Serbia

Sun, 2008-06-29 12:13 -- John Hawks

Reuters is reporting on a Middle Pleistocene find from Serbia:

The fragment of a lower jaw, complete with three teeth, was discovered in a small cave in the Sicevo gorge in south Serbia.

"It is a pre-Neanderthal jaw that we believe is between 130,000 to 250,000 years old," said Belgrade University archaeology professor Dusan Mihailovic, head of the team studying the jaw.

Sounds cool, but there's little in the way of relevant detail.

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.