john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Shimmy-shaking

Thu, 2009-12-31 11:30 -- John Hawks

From The Onion:

Early Humans Finally Drunk Enough To Invent Dancing

"While human beings had experimented with rudimentary forms of shimmying and gyration as early as the Neanderthal period, it was not until they were able to reach critical levels of utter inebriation that early cultures finally began to let their hair down and really cut loose," said Yu Wei Lin of the Beijing Institute of Dance Studies.

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.