Category Archives: Fossils

Quotes for the day – Expansion and speciation

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Continuous expansion to new environments is the most general overriding feature of all adaptive radiation. The pattern of this divergence between populations and species is partly predictable from principles of quantitative genetic covariation. The initials stages of divergence between populations … Continue reading →

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Linearity and simplicity in the fossil record

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Spend time reading about human evolution and it will not be long until you come across a discussion of “bushy” vs. “linear” evolutionary scenarios or arguments between taxonomic “splitters” (favoring more species) and “lumpers” (favoring fewer species). I will, up … Continue reading →

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The complexity of human sexual dimorphism

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Today’s dialogue on sexual dimorphism and human evolution, hosted by BU’s Anthropology department and featuring Michael Plavcan and Phil Reno as speakers, was great. But it was not great because it came to any grand resolution on questions of the … Continue reading →

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What I talked about at the AAPA meetings

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Here is a link to a slightly modified (in order to display correctly in .pdf form) version of the talk I gave in Portland at this year’s AAPA meetings.

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Sexual dimorphism and human evolution

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am once again going to promote BU’s on-going Dialogues in Biological Anthropology series. This Thursday they are hosting a discussion on sexual dimorphism and human evolution (Does Size Matter?) featuring Michael Plavcan (Univ. of Arkansas) and Josh Reno (Penn … Continue reading →

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Fossil wish-list

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

The Smithsonian blog, Hominid Hunting, had a list last week of their “fantasy fossil finds” – the fossils they would most like to see discovered. Of the discoveries listed, I would say #6 (more Homo habilis/Homo rudolfensis finds) and #10 … Continue reading →

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More on the Burtele foot…

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

…from people more knowledgable than me. Holly Dunsworth, at The Mermaid’s Tale, has a long post that touches on a number of questions raised by the new fossils. One point I like that she highlights is the variation seen within … Continue reading →

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Fossil data, access and technology, part 2

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

This is the follow-up to a piece I posted earlier on what exactly do we mean by fossil data. In that piece, I suggested that at a primary level, fossil data is the fossil itself together with its associated context. … Continue reading →

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New fossil of the day, the Burtele foot

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

The New York Times, Science News and a multitude of other publications all have stories out on a just released paper from Nature on a new fossil foot specimen from Ethiopia. From the Nature News writeup on the paper: The … Continue reading →

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Fossil data, access and technology, part 1

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the issues I find myself thinking about in the murkier moments of paleoanthropological reflection is the nature of the data available to us. I don’t mean by this the question of “how complete is the fossil record,” but … Continue reading →

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