Monthly Archives: August 2012

Back to school…

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

…for me and my kids. Lots of back to school stuff keeping me busy at the moment, but will hopefully have a number of posts-in-progress up later in the week.

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Neandertal-human admixture and early Homo

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Last week’s pre-publication of a paper addressing the alternative hypotheses of Neandertal-human admixture vs. ancient African population structure, with respect explaining the signal of Neandertal DNA in living humans, has generated a lot of great posts. First, John Hawks has … Continue reading →

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Legitimate science on pregnancy and rape

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Clancy’s post is a must-read response to all the controversy surrounding Todd Akin’s remarks over the weekend: Think of all the illnesses and conditions that make the news regularly. Take gluten intolerance, for example. The incidence for gluten intolerance … Continue reading →

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Links for the new week

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Just passing along a number of links to things that, in a world made of more time, I might have written more about: Interested in climate change? Anthropology News is starting a listserv on the topic Sample size issues in … Continue reading →

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Neandertal and modern human admixture

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Sriram Sankararaman, Nick Patterson, Heng Li, Svante Pääbo and David Reich have a new paper (open access, via ArXiv here) that tests whether or not genetic similarities between recent humans and Neandertals is the result of recent admixture or ancient … Continue reading →

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In praise of the pollex

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Anatomists, those masters of the dark arts of naming each and every of our body parts, refer to our thumb as the pollex, to which I can only say bollocks. A thumb is a thumb and be glad you have … Continue reading →

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The importance of dates in the Plio-Pleistocene

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

This week’s discussion of the new fossils from Northern Kenya once again raises the issue of the critical role played by precise geological dating at this time period. This is hardly a new issue, but one that perhaps gets too … Continue reading →

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The new Koobi Fora early Homo fossils

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

UPDATE: For some additional takes, check out Erin Wayman’s piece at Hominid Hunting (Smithsonian) and Zachary Cofran’s great discussion of these new fossils alongside the material from Malapa, South Africa, at Lawnchair Anthropology. Meave Leakey, Fred Spoor and colleagues have … Continue reading →

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