A new ~2 Ma hominin cranium just discovered at the Drimolen hominin site in South Africa as part of a newly funded @arc-gov-au.bsky.social project to @ltuarchaeology.bsky.social @latrobe.edu.au and University of Johannesburg. The first year of joint Drimolen-Kromdraai excavations.

📚Special Issue alert📚: Contribute to "Above and Below the Sea: Coastal Ecosystems and Submerged Paleolandscapes in Prehistoric Archaeology and Marine Geology" to be published in Frontiers in Earth Science. Here is all the information www.frontiersin.org/research-top... #archaeology #coast #marine

P-RI Research Series! Today, we'd like to celebrate Drs Manuel Will and Matthias Blessing on their most recent article in Nature Communications. Please access the article via the QR code or link below: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks a lot for sharing, glad to be a part of UJ's Paleo-Research Institute and its stellar researchers!

Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene🏺🧪 @manuelwill.bsky.social et al www.nature.com/articles/s41... Locality with uniquely preserved lithic assemblages with many refits dating from ~220 ka to ~110 ka for reduction and export of a single tool stone.

A nice News piece in @science.org on our recent article about Jojosi with comments by some colleagues (featuring @huwgroucutt.bsky.social among others!). www.science.org/content/arti...

Our new paper exploring the measurement of complexity in tools - the result of significant and ongoing work, including that which emerged from our Complexity in Lithics Conference! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Happy to be a part of this great new article on assessing and measuring complexity in archaeological, ethnographic and primatological contexts!

News from Jojosi!

Jojosi (Sudáfrica): los primeros humanos modernos explotaron durante decenas de milenios (220-110 ka) una misma fuente de materia prima (hornfels o corneana). Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene

🏺 🧪

Evidence from the Jojosi site in South Africa shows early humans deliberately quarried stone for toolmaking as far back as 220,000 years ago, indicating advanced resource planning. doi.org/hbv7v9

🚨 Publication alert🚨 Early humans in South Africa were quarrying stone as long as 220,000 years ago at the site of Jojosi @natcomms.nature.com - specialized, long-term use of a source of a raw material source in Stone Age Africa: Read the paper #openaccess here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm grateful to @gerda-henkel-stiftung.de for funding "The Jojosi Shelter Excavation Project – Understanding prehistoric land-use and raw material provisioning in southeastern South Africa". A great site that looked promising in test excavations 2025 & just next to open-air Middle Stone Age finds!

🚨Job alert!🚨 The Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS announces 2 junior Professor (W1) positions: A W1 Tenure track Professorship in Evolutionary Modelling (shorturl.at/FN102) and a W1 Professorship (non Tenure-track) in Primatology (shorturl.at/sH0Mk) Deadline: April 6 2026! Please share! 🔄

Fantastic paper and very exciting results. Small weight but much higher stature for Homo habilis than other individuals!

Christian Drosten erhält die Auszeichnung „Rede des Jahres 2025“ der #UniTübingen. Das Seminar für Allgemeine #Rhetorik zeichnet den Virologen für dessen Plädoyer für eine engagierte Wissenschaft aus: 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet/…

"Archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing", it was said. Arguably this focus on the ethnographic present is having a strongly negative impact on our understanding of the deep past. Some very useful thoughts on this topic in new paper by Kuhn and Stiner (link.springer.com/article/10.1...)

Für Offenheit, Vielfalt und den freien Austausch von Ideen 🌍📚: Die Universität Tübingen beteiligt sich gemeinsam mit vielen weiteren Hochschulen an der Kampagne #HochschulenZeigenHaltung. 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet... #UniTübingen

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

I wonder if anyone ever got rejected from MDPI

Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear..... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@robertosaezm.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just finished my 100th review for a journal article - not sure if I should celebrate this anniversary or not 👀 #academia #reviewernumber2

Die @unileipzig.bsky.social, @maxplanck.de & @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social bauen ihre Zusammenarbeit in Forschung & Lehre aus: 5 gemeinsame Professuren & geplanter Master-Studiengang f. evolutionäre Anthropologie an der Fakultät f. #Lebenswissenschaften der Uni Leipzig. www.eva.mpg.de/de/presse/ak...

Immer schön, mit tollen Gesprächspartnern komplexen Inhalten auf den Grund zu gehen. Danke @manuelwill.bsky.social und Ph. Gunz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social dafür #Evolution #Anthropologie #Archäologie  www.br.de/nachrichten/...

Fossiler Schädel: Homo sapiens viel älter als angenommen? | via BR24 br.de/nachrichten/... @br24.de #Evolution #Anthropology

The #ESHE2025 meeting in Paris starts tomorrow (please use this hashtag for sharing). If you are interested in the program, you find it here mcusercontent.com/9347aa3598d5... - Members have received an email for accessing the live stream! We hope you all enjoy the conference in person or online. /MW

You've heard of the human "cognitive revolution" around 40 kya—a moment when our species suddenly became "behaviorally modern." Have you also heard that this story is wrong? From the archive, our episode w/ @elliescerri.bsky.social & @manuelwill.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/revisiting-t...

1) I am delighted to present this terrific tour de force research conducted by my post-doc Dr. Gayani Senevirathne @gayani.bsky.social and published today in Nature - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

'we find that, based on current evidence pertaining to these costs, the case for inferring know-how copying abilities in Oldowan or even Early Acheulean stone toolmakers is weak..this points to a later date for the establishment of this crucial human skill' link.springer.com/article/10.1...

For my German-speaking followers: A 20-minute Podcast episode in which I discuss the results of our recent paper in Nature within the wider context of the global dispersal of our species in the Pleistocene! detektor.fm/wissen/forsc... #archaeology #evolution #podcast #scicom

Job Alerts!🚨 We are looking to fill three Independent Junior Research Group Leader positions in the 'HUMAN ORIGINS' Cluster of Excellence at the University of Tübingen Application deadline: Sept. 10, Starting Jan. 1, 2026 1. Genotype-Phenotype interactions: uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

ZOOGESTURES has a web presence now! 🐒🦥🐻‍❄️ zoogestures.uni-koeln.de with @nakedprimate.bsky.social @mesh-research-hub.bsky.social 🏺🗃️📕

ZEIT Wissen3 stellt heute die Initiative PD Prekär vor. Mehr dazu gab es vor kurzem im Wiarda-Blog. Sehr erhellendes Gespräch u.a. zu den Absurditäten der Titulaturlehre als Grundbedingung dafür, den Titel ‚Privatdozent*in‘ behalten zu dürfen. www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/07....

Where do the Dmanisi hominins fit on the human evolutionary tree? dx.doi.org/10.1101/2025...

And it's a wrap! After 7 weeks of fieldwork filled with discoveries and new encounters, the team has returned to Bordeaux. See you soon at SAfA 2025 in Portugal!

"Der Traum verliert an Anziehungskraft" DHV-Präsident Lambert Koch über Wissenschaftlerkarrieren, Tenure Track, die Rolle der Habilitation – und warum verbindliche Befristungsquoten an Hochschulen für ihn keine Lösung sind, sondern neue Probleme schaffen könnten. www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/07...

www.sidestone.com/books/contes... Perhaps this PhD of mine will finally become a book reality after all 😱 🏺🗃️📕

Jetzt online: Der neue DFG-Jahresbericht. Er bildet statistische Kennzahlen zum #Förderhandeln 2024 ab, inkl. Rückschau auf die vorherigen 4 Jahre. 1/2 Zum Download 📑https://www.dfg.de/resource/blob/359464/69bb27de4890eef0491daeb3d05f9522/dfg-jb2024-data.pdf

"Do Recent DNA Studies Refute a 65 kya Arrival of Humans in Sahul?" See comment by @elliescerri.bsky.social and myself here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

In 2025, #ESHE elections for regular board members will be held again! If you are interested in standing for a board member, please send a short biography and a photograph to [email protected] no later than 20 July 2025!

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal 🏺🧪 Emily Y. Hallett, @manuelwill.bsky.social, @elliescerri.bsky.social et al www.nature.com/articles/s41... Found that this expansion was driven by humans increasing their use of diverse habitat types, from forests to arid deserts.

An amazing study by brilliant colleagues and dear friends. Give it a read!

🧪By our colleague @wbanks33.bsky.social in @nature.com H. sapiens expanded their ecological niches within Africa, occupied a broade range of habitats before their exit into Eurasia 60 ka. Adaptation as a path to long migration shorturl.at/Mfus8 @cnrsecologie.bsky.social @univbordeaux.bsky.social

1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

About 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests, our species learned to live just about anywhere. Later, that ability helped our ancestors expand from Africa across the world. Here’s my story on the human niche [Gift link] nyti.ms/3ZBc7ID

after 6 years, finally out in @nature.com! ‪Huge expansion of the human #niche in Africa ~70kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with unique ecological flexibility co-led with Emily Hallett @eegcam.bsky.social & @elliescerri.bsky.social #prehistory #humanevolution #paleoecology #SDM

Here is a thread detailing the main findings of the paper by the key people driving this study!

Published today in @nature.com our new study on the drivers of the successful dispersal of modern humans out of Africa! A huge, interdisciplinary team effort long in the making, headed by @elliescerri.bsky.social . Glad to have contributed! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #archaeology #Evolution