john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Marco Polo, call your office

Wed, 2005-10-12 22:41 -- John Hawks

So imagine you are digging out a pottery bowl from a 4000-year-old site, you turn it over, and out pops a bowl-shaped cast of dirt with noodles in the bottom!

LONDON - Italians are known for them and theories suggest they may have originated in the Middle East but scientists said on Wednesday the world's oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years, were made in China.

...

Unlike modern Chinese noodles or Italian pasta that are made mostly of wheat, the 4,000-year-old variety consisted of millet which is indigenous to China.

That's some cool archaeology.

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.