A new study suggests the “Neanderthal deserts” on the human X chromosome may be from mate preference rather than natural selection acting on deleterious genes. 🧪🏺

After a brief memorial, laz lit the cigarette at 6:00am. The 2026 Barkley Marathons has begun. #BM100

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

I'm too deep in book revisions to make a cake this year, but last year's Darwin quote cake still fits my mood ;) : "I am tired today & no heart to write & indeed not a word to say. I work a little every day with groans & sighs & am as dull as a pig. It is hopeless & useless." Happy Darwin Day. 😂

"There is grandeur in this view of life - that from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Happy birthday to the only and only Charles Darwin. 🧪

Whenever I see pseudoscientific conspiracy theories about ancient aliens or giant petrified trees or ice age satellites or whatever it drives me crazy because THE EARTH IS COOL ENOUGH JUST AS IT IS! WE DON’T NEED TO REACH FOR REASONS TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING! HAVE YOU SEEN A TULLY MONSTER??!!

The oldest known image of an owl: More than 30,000 years ago, someone skillfully scratched the figure of a long-eared owl (Asio otus) into the soft outer layer of the walls of Chauvet Cave, France. The owl is looking backward over their wings, head turned 180 degrees carnegiemnh.org/ancient-owl-...

"By dint of incessant repetition, the species name Homo habilis has become firmly entrenched in the paleoanthropological lexicon." What an opening sentence. 🏺🧪https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.70145?campaign=woletoc

Charles Lyell's book Antiquity of Man was published #OnThisDay in 1863. It argued that humans once lived alongside extinct animals like mammoths, meaning we have a deep past. It also examined the original Neanderthal.

Founders of modern paleontology, and their contributions to systemic racism, classism and sexism (🧵) Henry Osborn (1857–1935), responsible for naming of Tyrannosaurus & Velociraptor; president of ANHM. Co-founder of the American Eugenics Society. Contributing to books later praised by Hitler.

Charles Darwin began writing The Descent of Man #OnThisDay in 1868. "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." 🏺🧪

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT As of January 1st 2026, John and I are **no longer** the owners of Complexly (the educational media company we started 15 years ago that makes Crash Course, Eons, SciShow, Study Hall, and a bunch of other shows.) We have been the sole owners for all that time...

The original Neanderthal fossils were first presented to the scientific world #OnThisDay in 1857, at a meeting in Bonn. The partial skull was then thought to be Homo sapiens; it would be another six years before it was designated Homo neanderthalensis. 🏺🧪

The Taung Child was first mentioned in print today in 1925. 🏺🧪 📸 Len Richardson, Johannesburg Star.

Wonderful Ice Age art! Some 40,000 years ago, this tiny head of a cave lion was skilfully sculpted from mammoth ivory. It is one of the oldest known works of figurative art! 📷 by me #Archaeology

How I'm moving through my manuscript draft today.

Branches sharpened 400,000 years ago shine light on humans’ early toolmaking. https://scim.ag/3McCcdk

Postcranial fossils from the site of Drimolen in the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa provide further insights into hominin paleobiology at approximately 2.0 million years ago! New study by Caley M. Orr et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Some great book recs from @powells.bsky.social 👀

Their toolmaking techniques "appear to be well established and involve several intermediate steps, showing evidence of planning and foresight." 🏺🧪

Some inspiration for a cold day during bleak times. Half million year old handaxes from Boxgrove, Sussex, laid out for a photoshoot with Dr Claire Harris at the @britishmuseum.bsky.social #MondayMotivation 🦣🏺

🏺 Some gorgeous lithics from Orozmani, Georgia, just 20km from Dmanisi, also c. 1.8 Ma. (good to remember when dealing with claims of unexpectedly old sites in other places, that even extremely ancient hominins were producing unambiguous artefact assemblages) www.researchgate.net/publication/...

I am really excited to share news of this new jaw...until now Paranthropus had been conspicuously absent from the Afar. Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🏺 WOWWWW New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications: - nature of early aesthetics, innovations - relationship to oldest known Australian settlement? - and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Paranthropus in the Afar, pretty neat find! 🏺🧪

More bits of Homo habilis to pore over… but with strong arms, long forearms, doesn’t this just push that enduring question - “is it really “Homo” at all?” This species is purported to be an ancestor of ours, the earliest known in our genus… but I’m not so sure! www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Missed this when it came out over Christmas - a nice synthesis of current research on #Neanderthal diet (featuring some thoughts from me) in @nautil.us nautil.us/eat-like-a-n...

Something beautiful for the weekend! ✨ A rare rock crystal tool made by Neanderthals between 200,000 - 40,000 years ago. From a Mousterian level at the Merveilles rockshelter, Sergeac, Dordogne, France. 6 x 3.3 x 1.5 cm. Musée d’Archéologie Nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye 📷 by me #Archaeology

Returning to this book has really helped me this week, highly recommend.

I keep thinking about this fossil and can't help but imagine Australopithecus deyiremeda up in a tree, this foot grasping a branch, eating a fig and watching one of Lucy's kind walk along a lakeshore. 🏺

“For too long, a significant part of our past held beyond everyday reach of Indonesian society. Scholars discussed it, museums displayed it, global narrative was shaped around it, yet the Indonesian people could not see them at home. That era ends today.” -Fadli Zon 🏺

The earliest Homo species did not look human, partial skeleton shows | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

This morning I've been writing about the 1.5 million-year-old footprints from Koobi Fora, Kenya. What do you MEAN two species walked along a lakeshore within hours of each other? Breathtakingly cool. 📸Kevin Hatala/Chatham University

Fantastic! There's not much postcranial material known for Homo habilis or other early Homo species, so this is a very welcome addition to the record. Those are long forearms!

Do the Dmanisi fossils represent more than one species? dailygalaxy.com/2026/01/homo... 🏺🧪

“…So onward, ever onward.” -Bob Weir

Keep your eyes on Sulawesi, some interesting stuff happening there. 👀 www.discovermagazine.com/modern-human... 🏺🧪

🏺🧪 As there are a fair few new people joining here, a reshare of this list might be useful - let me know if you are a professional in this field and I'll add you. #Archaeology go.bsky.app/6hXVX57

This is such a cool finding--the oldest direct evidence of poisoned arrows. Poisoned hunting weapons were a game-changing innovation for our ancestors. Absolutely incredible that researchers found traces of plant toxins on these tiny arrowheads from 60,000 ago 🤯🏹 🧪

An incredibly thoughtful thread on how the new Sahelanthropus analysis helps us think through what the locomotion of the LCA might have been like. 🏺

Fossils dated to 773,000 years ago help close a gap in Africa’s fossil record of human origins. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/s... 🏺🧪

“Our analysis of these fossils offers direct evidence that Sahelanthropus tchadensis could walk on two legs.” Interesting. www.discovermagazine.com/this-7-milli... 🧪🏺

What I'm thinking about today: www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu... 🏺

And here’s my other human origins countdown to close out the year! 🏺🧪

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find! An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea. ✨ Happy New Year all! ✨ National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me #Archaeology

Only a few months until The Story of Birds is published! If you can't wait & want one of the first copies, check out this pre-order deal from @barnesandnoble.com Rewards & Premium Members get 25% off Dec 30-Jan 1! Premium Members get +10% off @marinerbooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social

One thing I did not anticipate when I started this book was how hard it would be to write about Homo erectus and what it actually is. 📸 Schwartz, Tattersall, Chi 2014

Book writing today includes contemplating this face, skull 5 from Dmanisi. Stunning. 🏺

Been thinking a lot recently about what these encounters might have been like, so this is interesting. 🏺🧪https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/12/the-encounter-between-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-in-the-iberian-peninsula-occurred-in-the-northwest/