Category Archives: Fossils

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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Selling fossils is bad…

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

…and almost always exploitative, taking advantage of countries that do not have the resources to police such transactions. The N.Y. Times reports on the attempt to auction off a complete Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton: Mr. Norell believed there was almost no … Continue reading →

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Seasonal signs

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One issue that constantly intrigues me is the importance of seasonality in the evolution and early dispersal of Homo from Africa ~2 million years ago. Africa does not lack complex seasonality, particularly with respect to humidity and ecological resource availability, … Continue reading →

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Neandertal anti-defamation files

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kyle Jarrard has a piece at The Huffington Post on changing attitudes about Neandertal competence: No more can we say that old Neanderthal — prototype of shaggy man with absolutely zero smarts — didn’t know what he was doing. And … Continue reading →

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Quote of the Day: Hypothesis testing and science

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Hypothesis-driven science is a mechanism for constructing compelling, publishable narratives, most of which are wrong. – Daniel MacArthur, Mass General geneticist, writer and blogger, via Twitter …And as it should be when done correctly. Paleoanthropology, perhaps owing to the special … Continue reading →

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Publishing raw data

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

The journal Paleoanthropology makes an obvious, but bold, step forward for our field: In this issue of PaleoAnthropology, we inaugurate a new section, titled “The Data Bank.”As its name suggests, this section will include raw data from excavations, anatomical, and … Continue reading →

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Lineages, species and Michigan, part 2

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I will have to follow up with my own comments later, but I wanted to direct you to Ken Weiss’s follow-up piece to his comments on the single-species hypothesis yesterday. I will make one brief observation, though. Ken writes: But … Continue reading →

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Lineages, species and Michigan

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the posts that I have had in draft form for several months, waiting for the proper motivation and approach to finalize, is titled, “lineages and species in the fossil record.” This week, perhaps, the time and motivation has … Continue reading →

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Access in Paleoanthropology

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Kate Wong, writing for Scientific American, gives proper journalistic treatment to the issue of access in paleoanthropology, something I was musing on back in March (here and here). That situation is apparently changing. According to Johanson, this past January Yonas … Continue reading →

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