John Hawks

John Hawks

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Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2025
In a year full of Denisovan discoveries, I look at some of the top highlights of research.
 • John Hawks
Bizarre foods: Neanderthal edition
Scientists propose a maggot-fueled hypothesis for the diets of ancient hunters
 • John Hawks
The Olduvai effect: New questions about meat-eating in human origins
Meta-analysis of butchered animal bones from East African sites shows that long-held assumptions about early hunters may be wrong.
 • John Hawks
Lactase and the Neandertals
New research shows that a common gene variant that may explain some lactase persistence in East Asia is introgressed from Neandertals.
 • John Hawks
Plant-eating and meat-eating in Australopithecus
A new approach to sampling nitrogen-15 in tooth enamel opens a window into the diets of early hominins.
 • John Hawks
Pounding water chestnuts on Jordan's ancient banks
New research highlights starch grains from many kinds of plants that were processed by pounding tools at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov.
 • John Hawks
A look at the fossil skull from Steinheim
The skull provides some of the best evidence for the ancestral population of Neandertals, and had a tumultuous history in the decades after its…
 • John Hawks
The real story of myosin, jaw muscles, and ancient brains
The provocative idea that our genus arose with a deactivated muscle gene turned out to be wrong.
 • John Hawks
Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2022
Research on ancient genomes has moved way beyond population mixture into broader questions about how ancient people lived and interacted with their…
 • John Hawks
A Neandertal recipe with lentils and grain
Looking at a fascinating study that finds mixtures of different plants within ancient morsels of charred foods.
 • John Hawks
Bison bones show butchery practices 400,000 years ago
In the Gran Dolina cave site, ancient people left a bone bed of bison killed in two seasons and butchered at the site with expedient tools.
 • John Hawks
Neandertals hunted dangerous prey. How they killed them.
With deep experience in the hunt, Neandertals could anticipate the behavior of many of the most dangerous prey animals.
 • John Hawks
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