Running for Science: Science for Running – The Complete Series

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

The 12-episode series is now a wrap! Thank you to everyone who helped in the process, both as a contributor and as a listener. This post is intended to bring together the whole series into a single, easily sharable post (I’ll also update this periodically, as new items come up).

As a reminder, the focus of this series was on exploring the science of human running. The series covers several major sub-topics within this area, broadly categorized as the anatomy of human bipedal locomotion, human biomechanics of walking/running, human energetics, and the neurobiology of human running. Alongside this research, the series covers aspects of my own experience training for my first marathon (the 2019 Boston Marathon) as part of the charity team running in support of the Museum of Science. If you are interested in supporting the Museum’s traveling education programs, there is still time to donate!

Episode 1 – “You have to walk before you can run” (Jeremy DeSilva)

Jerry and I talk about a whole host of issues related to the evolution of human running, including the early hominin fossil record, the basics of human bipedality, and why bipedality is important for humans beyond just locomotion (and Jerry’s own experience working at the Museum of Science and running the Boston marathon).

Episode 2 – “From our feet up” (Cody Prang)

Cody talks about some of his graduate work relating to the anatomy of the human foot and ankle, in particular, but also more broadly about how we explore changes in human biomechanics throughout the fossil record.

Episode 3 – “Hips don’t lie” (Anna Warrener)

Anna has done amazing work on biomechanical locomotor efficiency in men and women. Her work has argued against a long-held belief in biological anthropology about the “compromised” status of female pelves associated with constraints of childbirth, and the implications of these insights for how we might think about athletic performance in men and women today.

Episode 4 – “Footprints on my heart” (Kevin Hatala)

FOOTPRINTS! FOSSIL HOMININ FOOTPRINTS! MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS OLD!! Do I need to say more?

Episode 5 – “It’s what is on the inside that counts” (Maria Fox)

Maria is a graduate student at the University of Illinois investigating what the skeleton’s internal structures–the trabecular “spongey” bone that is integral to our skeleton’s biomechanical properties–can tell us about the evolution of human locomotion and running.

Episode 6 – “Density and intensity” (Habiba Chirchir)

Habiba Chirchir’s research examines, in a broad comparative perspective, how differences in bone density correspond to different activity patterns, not just in humans or even primates, but more broadly among mammals (and in the fossil record!).

Episode 7 – “A bad day for Peter Cottontail” (Adam Foster)

Adam and I cover a lot of different ground in this conversation, including the importance of development on shaping human anatomy and human locomotion (and rabbits).

Episode 8 – “Baby it’s cold outside” (Cara Ocobock)

In our conversation, Cara talks about the various ways she has investigated human energetics and locomotion, including how the temperature environment shapes human energy expenditure.

Episode 9 – “I was gonna go for a run, but then I got high” (David Raichlen)

David is another researcher whose body of work has covered a whole bunch of topics relevant for understanding the evolution of human running. Much of our talk in this episode focuses on aspects of the neurobiology, including the “runner’s high” phenomena in humans, and its relevance for thinking about the evolutionary scenarios shaping human running.

Episode 10 – “The rat race” (Natasha Mazumdar)

Natasha is another graduate student, and she share’s her research on the expression of genetic systems associated with the neurological response to running. Natasha also shares some of her perspective as an ultra-runner.

Episode 11 – “Energy schmenergy” (Herman Pontzer)

Herman has investigated the biomechanics of hominin locomotion, and particularly the energetics of human movement. His research has shifted towards theorizing how organisms establish energetic budgets in the context of varying physical activity patterns.

Episode 12 – “The end of the road” (Adam Van Arsdale)

In the final episode, I turn the mic over to Jerry DeSilva, and he interviews me about my experience running (and finishing) the Boston marathon, as well as the process of putting together this podcast, and public science more broadly.

Thank you for listening! Keep an eye on this site for future updates. And MANY MANY THANKS to all of you who have supported my fundraising effort!

The whole podcast can be found and downloaded via soundcloud here!

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Boston Marathon Training Update, new podcasts

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

The last time I updated my marathon training, things were going great. I had steadily increased my mileage, and by the end of January did my first half-marathon long run. Unfortunately, I pulled a muscle in my right leg in the process. Specifically, I pulled my sartorius near its insertion at the pes anserinus (as I tell my students each year, knowing anatomy is actually quite empowering).

This is a complicated anatomical region because in addition to the sartorius (which is an external rotator of the hip), the gracilis (which runs along the midline of the thigh) and the semitendinosus (part of the hamstring group of muscles). What it meant for me is that I had to stop running. So I took four weeks off from running, and instead tried to supplement my exercise with increased time in the pool. My steady uptick in mileage fell back to my pre-training baseline levels.

After four weeks, I tried to run again. Nope. Immediate sharp discomfort on the medial side of my right knee. So I took another week off and tried again. Nope. Better…but not good enough. So I took another week off. At this point I was starting to get nervous. I had fallen way off my prescribed training schedule and was now only about 6 weeks away from the marathon itself. But I was able to start running again. I wouldn’t say I was (or am) 100%, but I can run without feeling like I am doing damage to myself. It takes me awhile to warm up, but I have been able to hope back into a regimen and ramped it up to a 16-mile run this past weekend. I’m hoping to get in one more long run this week or early next of 20-21 miles, but even if that doesn’t happen, I feel I have at least put myself in a position to run the marathon successfully.

So…2.5 weeks to go for the marathon!

Science for Running: Running for Science

I added four more episodes to the podcast series last week (https://soundcloud.com/running4science/sets/running-for-science-science), featuring some great conversations with Kevin Hatala, Maria Fox, Habiba Chirchir, and Adam Foster. I’ll have blogposts up for those episodes later this week. I’ll be adding two more episodes each of the next two weeks, featuring some amazing anthro-folks (Cara Ocobock, Dave Raichlen, Natasha Mazumdar, and Herman Pontzer). Keep an eye out for those!

Finally, if you feel like supporting my run and specifically, supporting the Museum of Science and its traveling science programs, consider giving!

https://give.mos.org/fundraiser/1801782

Posted in Anthropology, Energetics | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Cleveland-bound! (Annual meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropology, aka AAPAs)

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

I’m heading out at the crack of dawn on Friday for a quick two-day trip to this year’s annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropology meetings (AAPAs). Of note is that this may be the last AAPA meetings ever! Fear not. This is not because the organization is ending, but because we are considering a formal name change to the organization, with the distinct possibility of moving past the antiquated “physical” designation and moving to a (in my view) more appropriate/accurate designation of “biological” anthropologists. That action will take place Friday night at the business meeting (oh boy!).

Fittingly, the work that I will be presenting this year, far from being “physical,” is of the “virtual” variety. Specifically, I’ll be sharing some of the pedagogical development I have been engaged in with colleagues and students here at Wellesley in the creation of a fully-immersive VR lab for studying human skeletal and fossil hominin material. I’ll be presenting this work as past of an education focused poster session on Saturday, but I’m also bringing along the computer equipment to actually set up the VR lab so that people can experience it for themselves (assuming I can commandeer the appropriate space in the conference center…). You can check out the poster at the link below:

I’m also eager for any feedback. If you have thoughts, fill out this form (thanks, in advance!).

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Running for Science:Science for Running – Episode 3, Hips Don’t Lie (Anna Warrener)

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

No part of human skeletal anatomy is more central to our understanding of human bipedal locomotion-and it’s distinction from ape patterns of locomotion-than the pelvis. On this week’s episode I talk with Dr. Anna Warrener (CU-Denver), who has done amazing research on the pelvis.

Our conversation talks extensively about her research looking at the long-held belief that the female pelvis, because of evolutionary constraints of childbirth, is less-efficient at locomotion than the male pelvis. Turns out what we thought we knew is most likely wrong, with some potentially big implications for how we understand a few major evolutionary transitions in the past. Also how we might think about sex differences in running today…

If you want to go more in depth, check out this paper from Dr. Warrener and her colleauges in PLOS:One on the topic:

– Warrener, Anna G., et al. “A wider pelvis does not increase locomotor cost in humans, with implications for the evolution of childbirth.” PloS one 10.3 (2015): e0118903.

The pelvis is a complicated anatomical structure, involving the integration of multiple bones during the course of development. Here is a bit of a reference to help:

Human pelvis (source:Wikipedia commons): 1 – sacrum, 2 – Ilium, 3 – Ischium, 4 – Pubis, 5 – Pubic symphysis, 6 – Acetabulum, 7 – Obturator foramen

Just a reminder, I am producing this podcast in support of the Boston Museum of Science and their traveling education programs. These programs reach more than 100,000 learners each year by visiting schools and community events, and providing high quality and engaging science education. By supporting my run, you will be helping to support science enrichment for communities all across New England. And I will be forever grateful!

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Running for Science: Science for Running – Episode 2, From Our Feet Up (Cody Prang)

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

Episode 2 of “Running for Science:Science for Running” is live! This episode, “From Our Feet Up,” features Cody Prang, a doctoral student at NYU. Cody’s doctoral research focuses on the evolution of the human foot, lower limb, and biomechanics of hominin locomotion.

For a little additional reference on the foot, here is an anatomical rendering of the bones of the foot and some of their key features (source: Gray’s Anatomy – Wikipedia Commons).

Gray's anatomy, source:Wikipedia commons

As a reminder, this podcast series is part of my fundraising effort in support of the Boston Museum of Science and their traveling education programs. Please consider making a donation. Every dollar raised goes directly and fully to the outstanding science outreach programs provided by the Museum.

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Running for Science: Science for Running – Episode 1, You Have to Walk Before You Can Run (Jeremy DeSilva)

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

Happy to release episode 1 of “Running for Science: Science for Running.” This episode – You have to walk before you can run – features Dartmouth anthropologist, Jeremy DeSilva. Jerry is a good friend I have known since graduate school, but he is also one of the world’s leading experts on the evolution of the hominin lower limb, having worked with some of the earliest Pliocene fossils from Ethiopia, Kenya, and more recent discoveries from South Africa.

He recently co-edited a special issue of the journal Paleoanthropology focused on the remains of Australopithecus sediba from the site of Malapa, South Africa. Paleoanthropology is an open-access, online journal, so you can check out the entire issue here (http://www.paleoanthro.org/journal/volumes/2018/).

This episode should be going up on iTunes shortly, thus making it accessible for download and playback at your convenience. I’ll update the post when it is live on iTunes. In the meantime, it is hosted on Soundcloud or available to stream in your browser here.

Jerry and I cover some of the big picture issues surrounding the place of bipedality in our evolutionary past. This interactive timeline from the Smithsonian will be helpful if you are new to human evolution. Another valuable reference is eskeletons.org, which allows you to compare skeletal anatomy across a range of primates, including humans.

Human – Chimpanzee comparison. Images courtesy of eskeletons.org.

As a reminder, this podcast is produced as part of a fundraising effort to support the Boston Museum of Science and its traveling education programs. If you enjoy the content, please consider supporting the podcast and supporting me, by donating on my behalf.

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Three papers: January 13-19, 2019

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

Three papers that caught my attention this week in the world of human evolution:

* “Limits of long-term selection against Neandertal introgression.” Petr Martin, Svante Pääbo, Janet Kelso, and Benjamin Vernot

It is now well-established the early “modern” humans (that term will remain in scare quotes until I resolve myself on something better) admixed with Neandertal populations, in addition to several other archaic human lineages, on multiple occasions. The establishment of such admixture between these diverse lineages has resolved a long-standing argument in paleoanthropology. Not yet resolved is what happened after such admixture events. In particular, a fascinating set of conflicting results has popped up as to whether and how Neandertal alleles that entered into the gene pool of expanding “modern” human populations were subsequently selected against via natural selection. At issue is whether or not Neandertal variants were largely selected against very quickly (on the order of ~1000 years) or whether there was a slow, gradual decline in the amount of Neandertal ancestry carried by “modern” humans (Fu, et al., 2016; Harris & Nielsen, 2016).

The basic idea is that Neandertals had an excess of deleterious alleles relative to “modern” humans, at least in part, because Neandertal (effective) population sizes were so small as to limit the effectiveness of selection to act on these alleles. Once they found themselves on the background of a less demographically-constrained genetic background (provided by “modern” humans), they were suddenly more available for the action of selection. Rather than go into the technical details of the paper, I’ll refer you to a great explainer thread on twitter from one of the paper’s authors, Benjamin Vernot:

This matters because it provides additional framing for how we think about the demographic and evolutionary context of admixture between paleo-lineages of humans. It is potentially important in the increasingly nuanced argument about whether or not Neandertals (and other archaic lineages) represent different species of humans, or simply divergent (and largely extinct) lineages of Homo sapiens.

* “Multivariate morphometrics, quantitative genetics, and neutral theory: Developing a “modern synthesis” for primate evolutionary morphology.” Noreen von Cramon‐Taubadel

This paper is a really wonderful overview/review of how we can address questions of evolutionary change and evolutionary process through study of morphology. This review builds off a lot of exciting work within the field over the past decade, including some of von Cramon-Taubadel’s own work (e.g. von Cramon-Taubadel, 2014). I thought the paper did a great job of presenting how we ask questions of morphology alongside the limitations on those questions. I took out a couple of quotes from it on twitter. For example:

“…It is important, therefore, to constantly bear in mind that just because we measure a bone a certain way (and have been doing so for decades) does not imbue that measurement with any inherent evolutionary information…”

This question of how evolutionary information is distributed within, among, and between fossils and fossil samples has been on my mind a lot of late, and is often an issue left unaddressed in work. von Cramon-Taubadel also goes on to make a very clear distinction between the various ways in which “functionality” gets interpreted in morphology, and how those varying definitions play into arguments about the action of natural selection versus genetic drift:

“So, the overall phenotype is, of course, “functional,” but the question is whether variation within the phenotype can be thought of as “adaptive,” in the sense that natural selection is required to explain the diversification of skeletal form across lineages…Rather than pitching stochastic and selective explanations as alternative and competing hypotheses, we need to recognize neutral models as helpful null hypotheses of explanation on which we can build more elaborate adaptive scenarios should they be needed.”

That paper is definitely going onto my syllabus.

* This last one is cheating, because it is not a paper, but instead a special issue featuring a whole batch of papers. The online journal, Paleoanthropology, released a special 2018 volume with a series of papers on Australopithecus sediba, the set of fossils recovered from the site of Malapa, South Africa, a decade ago.

The volume includes eight research papers on different aspects of Au. sediba‘s anatomy, in addition to an introduction by Scott Williams, Jerry DeSilva, and Darryl De Ruiter (2018). With all the excitement about the Rising Star hominin fossils over the past several years, it is easy to lose track of the other amazing batch of fossils discovered over the past decade, not far down the road.

I love Paleoanthropology as a journal because it is entirely open-access and its online-only format means that there are no space constraints on publications. The journal actively encourages you to think of ways of publishing raw data! So you can go to this paper on the cranial remains by De Ruiter, et al. (2018), and immediately find yourself immersed in 17 pages of comparative data tables. I love it!

Works cited:

– De Ruiter, et al. “The Skull of Australopithecus sediba.” Paleoanthropology 2018: 10.4207/PA.2018.ART112
-Fu, Qiaomei, et al. “The genetic history of ice age Europe.” Nature 534.7606 (2016): 200.
-Harris, Kelley, and Rasmus Nielsen. “The genetic cost of Neanderthal introgression.” Genetics (2016): genetics-116.
-Petr, Martin, et al. “Limits of long-term selection against Neandertal introgression.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019): 201814338.
– von Cramon-Taubadel, Noreen. “Evolutionary insights into global patterns of human cranial diversity: population history, climatic and dietary effects.” J. Anthropol. Sci 92.4 (2014).
– von Cramon-Taubadel, Noreen. “Multivariate morphometrics, quantitative genetics, and neutral theory: Developing a “modern synthesis” for primate evolutionary morphology” Evolutionary Anthropology (2019). https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21761
– Williams, DeSilva and De Ruiter. “Malapa at 10: Introduction to the Special Issue on Australopithecus sediba” Paleoanthropology 2018: 10.4207/PA.2018.ART111

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The beginning of the journey: Training update, January 18

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

I will be posting weekly updates throughout my marathon training/podcast production process. These updates are intended to add some personal/narrative components alongside the scientific conversations featured on the podcast. This first update is a bit extended, as it really covers some of my background and the first 7-ish weeks of training.

My background

I am not a runner. At least I have never considered myself one, and as of yet, I still don’t. I suppose if I make it to the finish line of the Boston Marathon I’ll have to reconsider. I was, at one point in time, a swimmer. For the decade between ages 12-22 I was a pretty dedicated, competitive swimmer, training as much as 50 weeks a year throughout middle school and high school, and continuing in college at Emory University. I wasn’t a great swimmer, but I swam a lot and was in, by any reasonable standard, very good physical fitness.

I’m the one on the far right in this pic, circa 1997, at the Northeast Ohio District (high school swimming) Championship


After college I went straight to grad school at the University of Michigan, getting my Ph.D. in 2006, after which I taught at U of M for two years. In 2008 I came to Wellesley College (my current institution) as an Assistant Professor. In 2011 I was married and became the father to two wonderful step-kids. In 2013 we added a third child.

I provide this background because I want to give you a sense of my own experience and activity level coming into this process. One of the challenges of initiating any kind of a new routine is simply that, it is new. It is not necessarily that you aren’t able to handle the changes, it is just that change is hard, and dealing with the unfamiliar can be an obstacle in and of itself. Part of the goal of these “diary entries” is to chronicle the process from both my personal and scientific perspective. My background prior to this process is that I was once a highly-trained athlete, then I went to grad school and started a career, and eventually started a family. Since I graduate college I have not been inactive, but I have not had a regular or sustained form of moderate/elevated physical activity. I walk the dog. I take care of my kids. I go about my day. That’s about it. Over the last few years as I have entered into my later 30s, the joints have gotten a little more noticeable, and my weight, which had long been pretty stable, has slowly but steadily ticked upwards. In many ways, I think my trajectory is probably not too uncommon.

Twenty years later – “dad body” achieved

Training

My baseline level of activity prior to the start of marathon training is pretty conveniently available via the all-encompassing grasp of technology. Specifically, my phone. I usually have it with me, so it does a pretty good job of tracking how far I travel on a given day. My typical day-to-day activity level, mainly achieved through twice-daily dog walks and parenting, was about 3.5-4 miles of walking a day.

Activity log, November 2018


My official training regimen began the final week of November. The Museum of Science running team is part of the broader Boston Marathon Coalition, a partnership of charity organizations that field teams for the marathon. We have several coaches, a recommended training schedule, and weekly group long runs that we are invited to partake in. Thus far, I have done a pretty good job of sticking to the recommended training.

Activity log, December 2018

As you can see, my activity level jumped up considerably in December, with noticeable peaks in that activity associated with long runs. Those numbers have ticked up a little bit more in early January, with the below figure ending with last weekend’s long-run of 10.8 miles, the longest run (yet) of my life.

Activity log, early January 2019


My focus in these early weeks in training has really been on finding a consistent running form, while doing my best to manage the increased strain on my body from suddenly doing a decent amount of running. Finding a running form that felt comfortable and efficient has definitely been aided by my knowledge of anatomy and some of the conversations I have been having with colleagues while recording the podcasts. My point of emphasis was initially very much thinking about my footstrike and stride length, and as I have been ramping up my activity level, has shifted up more towards thinking about my knees and hips. Part of this has been some initial medial tibial inflammation (“shin splints”), which as they have come under control, have given way to some general muscle/joint aches in my knees and hips. But on the whole, so far, so good!

The other thing I have been focusing on is enjoying the run. I don’t love running. I sort of suspect that when this is all said and done I still won’t love running. With a background as a swimmer, something about the physicality of ground reaction forces moving up through my body is off-putting. It feels (appropriately) a bit destructive. But I love being outdoors. I love experiencing the world at a different pace. And I certainly love the endorphin/endocannabinoid kick I get after a good run (tune in to later episodes of the podcast to learn more about those endogenous drugs!).

Moving ahead, I’ll give brief updates each week on the training, the state of my body and mind as I go through this, and other thoughts relating to the experience. Stay tuned!

Scenes from the road/trail

I’ll try to add a couple of photos from the journey each week.

My occasional running partner, Clifford, our wonderful 11(ish) year old dog

Wellesley campus from across Lake Waban, on an early winter’s evening

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Running for Science: Science for Running – A podcast series and fundraising drive

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

I hinted in my post earlier this month that I had a number of exciting projects upcoming. One of them, I am proud to more formally announce today, and will go live next week.

Introducing…

Running for Science: Science for Running, a podcast series devoted to running, the evolution of human locomotion and energetics, and my role as part of the Boston Museum of Science Boston Marathon team this year.

WHAT IS IT?

The podcast series will be a 15-episode (give or take a few) series featuring conversations with scientists (and maybe a few others) who research topics directly and indirectly related to how we understand the evolutionary history of human running. I have structured the series not unlike a course syllabus, so the episodes and scientists will progress from basic aspects of human locomotor anatomy, to more specific details of human gait, fossil foot-trails, human energetics and metabolism, and the neurobiology of running. In reaching out to collaborators on this project, I have really tried to include a diverse range of researchers, with an emphasis on scientists earlier in their careers. My focus in these conversations is on their research, how it informs us about our evolutionary past, how we as the general public might use this information to inform our own understanding of our bodies or our exercise/training routines, and also how the science itself gets done.

There will probably be a few adjustments over the course of the series, but the lineup as currently constructed includes the following collaborators:

Jeremy DeSilva, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Dartmouth College
T. Cody Prang, Graduate Student, Anthropology, NYU
Anna Warrener, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, CU-Denver
Campbell Rolian, Associate Professor, Anatomy, University of Calgary
Maria Fox, Graduate Student, Anthropology, University of Illinois
Kevin Hatala, Assistant Professor, Biology, Chatham University
Habiba Chirchir, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Marshall University
Natasha Mazumdar, Graduate Student, Anthropology, University of Illinois
Adam Foster, Assistant Professor, Anatomy, Campbell University
David Raichlen, Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Arizona
Cara Ocobock, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University at Albany SUNY
Herman Pontzer, Associate Professor, Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University

HOW WILL IT WORK?

Next week I will be releasing the first three episodes. From that point on until the marathon (April 15th!), a new episode will be released each week. Each episode will be linked directly from the blog here (in addition to other social media outlets), and will include an accompanying blog post with supplemental information associated with the topics covered in that episode.

In addition to the episodes themselves, I’ll be posting weekly updates to my training, and my own personal journey towards the Boston Marathon, and eventually, reflections on the entire experience (podcast, running, science, and all).

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

The why am I running the marathon at all I’ll address in a subsequent post. As to why I am doing the podcast, SCIENCE! And specifically the kind of public science that the Museum of Science, my charity sponsor, supports. I have always been a big proponent of scientists making their work as publicly available as possible. Much of the work we do as scientists is publicly funded, and the obligation to make the outcome of that work public is intrinsic to the process. But more broadly, I believe that the process of translating science into the public sphere brings with it a lot of related value.

I am particularly passionate about this when it comes to understanding evolution. Evolution is controversial and poorly understood, despite the fact that the evidence and actions of evolution are ubiquitous in the world around us. None of us are unaffected by evolution, and all of us stand to benefit from a better understanding of the topic and its role in shaping the who and the why and the how of human existence. Having said that, that goal it is easier proclaimed than achieved. And teaching evolution is not just a matter of teaching the facts as we understand them, it also involves teaching the context through which we have and do study evolution.

I have taught about human evolution for more than a decade now. I’ve taught in College/University classrooms. I’ve taught in public forums, including in conjunction with my father, a (now-retired) Protestant pastor. I’ve taught online (you can see go through all 12 weeks of my free EdX course if you are interested!). One of the things I have found helpful across each of these settings is finding a topic that allows individuals to make personal connections with the subject. My goal in the podcast is to do that through running! We all move, we all have a common, evolved, musculo-skeletal system. And many of us engage our body in exercise (even long-distance running) on a pretty regular basis. What a great way to learn more about how our body functions, how it moves, and how it came to be that way throughout our evolutionary past? And all from a really phenomenal group of young scientists!

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

First, listen to the pocast! Share it with friends, family members, colleagues! And if you have questions about the show, leave a comment or @ me on twitter (@APV2600).

But second, and even more important, consider supporting my run. I am running on behalf of the Museum of Science in support of their traveling education programs. These programs go directly to schools, communities, and groups that might otherwise not have access to the learning resources available at the Museum of Sciences. Last year these programs reached more than 100,000 people in the greater New England region, giving them access to a whole host of high-quality, pedagogically-effective, learning programs.

As a member of the MOS team, I have a fundraising goal of $7500. 100% of these funds go to the MOS traveling education program. I hope that in listening to the podcast, you will find the mission of public science, and the mission of the Museum of Science more broadly, worth your support. If you are in a position to donate, please consider a donation. My team page can be found here (https://give.mos.org/fundraiser/1801782).

Thank you for your support!

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A Tale of Two Maps: Ancient DNA and Ancient Hominins

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Adam Van Arsdale

A while back Chris Stringer linked to a wonderful interactive map on twitter.

The map, put together by Nicky Rozenblatt, is an attempt to curate current ancient DNA (aDNA) samples (link: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#3/23.41/91.88). A quick overview of the Eurasian/African portion of the map reveals a clear distributional pattern. Most of our current aDNA comes from mid/high latitude parts of Eurasia. If you look only at the more ancient samples, this becomes an even starker contrast. There are clear preservation reasons for this. DNA appears to preserve best in cool/cold/stable/dry conditions. These traits are more characteristic of mid-latitude Eurasia than southern Eurasia, the Middle East, or Africa. It also is the case that there is a substantial historical bias in fossil/ancient skeleton retrieval from Europe, particularly European cave sites (Athreya & Ackermann, 2018).

Map of ancient DNA (aDNA) localities across Africa & Eurasia (~2018)

We have learned, in just a little over a decade, a huge amount about human evolution from aDNA. Much of what we have learned has been surprising (at least in some corners of the paleonanthropological world)! Neandertals and those fossils we tend to identify as early “modern” humans, or Homo sapiens, interbred! There was this population of hominins distinct from Neandertals called, after the Siberian cave in which they were first identified (on the basis of genetic variation), Denisovans. We interbred with them, too! And Neandertals and Denisovans interbred with each other! And maybe other lineages that we may or may not have names for as of yet. It goes on…

For someone honed in fossil work, this level of specificity in population relations and events is stunning. So, too, has been the ability to use genetic data to generate semi-independent sources of dates, something that is always a confounding issue in paleoanthropology.

But the above map is weird, too. It is weird, because for the most part, it is pretty blank in the places we think most hominins lived. To give at least one perspective on this, here is a map from a paper by Hughes, et al. (2007) based on a probabilistic, biogeographic model of hominins expansion in the Pleistocene. The darker shaded areas are places with a high likelihood, based on their model, of hominin presence. I tried to produce an overlay of the two, but they are based on different renderings of the globe. Nevertheless, the contrast is clear.

Four renderings of hominin occupation likelihood across the Pleistocene (Hughes, et al., 2007)

The vast majority of our evolutionary story takes place within the continent of Africa. This was pretty much always the case. John Hawks recently gave a lecture at the ASHG meetings that emphasized this point.

When people talk about this phase of human evolution that began two million years ago, they nearly always focus on stories of colonization. The story you hear is that hominins left Africa. I’ve seen it hundreds of times, from scientists as much as from journalists. What gets lost is that the mainstream of human evolution remained African this entire time.

Population geneticists have long observed evidence for much greater effective population sizes in Africa than in either Europe or Asia (likely greater than the sum of those two regions for much, if not all, of the Pleistocene). Eller (2001) provides a review of some of these understandings going back to an immediately pre-genomic era. Even outside of Europe, the most abundant fossil samples of hominins until pretty late in the Pleistocene come from tropical areas of SE Asia that are also pretty blank on the aDNA map.

What does it mean that this incredibly rich source of data derived from aDNA covers an area that does not match up all that well with the known distribution of hominin fossils? What about hominin archaeological evidence of occupation? Each of these three kinds of data, fossils, aDNA, and archaeological materials, provides unique and contrasting, but also partially overlapping kinds of information. In other words, the provide evidence to address evolutionary hypotheses about our past in slightly different kinds of ways.

So…what does the above contrast mean? I don’t have an answer to that, and for the moment, I’ll just leave the observation here. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be circling back to this post with some thoughts on the implications of this discrepancy and what it might mean for what we know, don’t know, and what how new observations might alter these understandings in surprising (or not surprising) kinds of ways.

Works Cited:

– Athreya, Sheela, and Rebecca Rogers Ackermann. “Colonialism and narratives of human origins in Asia and Africa.” (2018).

– Eller, Elise. “Estimating relative population sizes from simulated data sets and the question of greater African effective size.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists 116.1 (2001): 1-12.

– Hughes, John K., et al. “Investigating early hominin dispersal patterns: developing a framework for climate data integration.” Journal of human evolution 53.5 (2007): 465-474.

Posted in Archaeology, Demography, Evolution, Fossils, Genetics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments