When Homo floresiensis was found in 2003, very few hominin skeletons were complete enough to measure arm-to-leg proportions. Lucy and Turkana Boy were really the only solid ones. Everything else was broken and fragmentary, making the hobbit's strange proportions hard to understand. 🧪🏺

Neanderthal skeleton in our display case for #FossilFriday

Yesterday in 1855, Darwin wrote to his best friend, "If I really have as bad an expression as this photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising." (I will never stop laughing at this). 🧪

A reminder that the stubborn "march of progress" image is misleading in about one hundred ways, the biggest of which is that it was never meant to be six figures at all. It was a foldout of fifteen, drawn in a 1965 book as the "road to Homo sapiens." Nine were hidden behind the fold. 🧪

I'm going to be talking on Neanderthal structures and Middle Palaeolithic monuments in York, June 6th, as part of a day celebrating Prof Spikins and the adaptive success of these remarkable Ice Age peoples. 🏺🦣 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/europa-202...

Just had a lovely conversation with illustrator Benoît Clarys, looking forward to working together on a project, such a big fan of his work. 🎨

“It feels like being the world's biggest party-pooper, but you can’t go out there & say you created a direwolf when you haven’t. That you genuinely believe you recreated an extinct species based on 20 gene edits.” @toriherridge.bsky.social debunks the de-extinction grift, with @rowhoop.bsky.social.🧪

Today in 1868, Darwin wrote to a friend, "It drives me mad & I know it does you too, that one has no time for reading anything beyond what must be read: my room is encumbered with unread books." 📚🧪

Neanderthals Lounged on the Beach Slurping Shellfish nautil.us/neanderthals... 🦑🧪🌎

Not today, Colossal.

Colossal continues to woo journalists with promise of access. Controversy, if mentioned, is often watered down and pushed to later portions of articles. I have not met a single ecologist, paleontologist, or other researcher who endorses what Colossal's doing, but journalists keep giving them good PR

Calling all paleoanthropologists! I'm back freelancing and looking for stories to pitch. New paper dropping? Cool find you want the world to know about? Reach out! 🧪🏺✍️

Lungs aren't just older than feet...they are waaaaaay older than feet. Lungs are older than trees.

Was just reminded of one of my favorite journal quotes, from Brochu & Sumrall 2020.

We’re excited to announce that the first 2026 issue of PaleoAnthropology is now online! A big thank you to everyone who made this issue possible. 📖 Read it here: paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.ph... #PaleoAnthropology #HumanEvolution #Archaeology #OpenAccess

The gigantic ground sloth Megatherium at MACN in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The size of this herbivore is difficult to appreciate from the photo. A human would only stand near hip height (on the platform) next to this Ice Age megamammal! #FossilFriday

🏺🧪🦣 I'm at about 18 minutes in, giving a few thoughts and some context to this new find 🦷 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Darwin began writing a "sketch" of his big idea #OnThisDay in 1856. It would later form the base of his book, On the Origin of Species.

Today in 1861, Darwin wrote to a friend, "I have no news to tell you, for I have had no interesting letters for some time & have not seen a soul."

Middle Pleistocene hominin interactions like

interesting study! though sadly after the root canal the neandertal's dental insurance rejected the claim and they had to pay the whole thing out of pocket

Scientists have identified ancient proteins from Homo erectus, marking the first time genetic info has been extracted from the species. But the results raise the question -- Do we even know what Homo erectus is? 🧪🏺

Proteins recovered from 400,000-year-old fossils show humans living today may have inherited genes from Homo erectus: "There’s far greater complexity in terms of hominins across Eurasia than previously recognized," says @york.ac.uk geochemist Kirsty Penkman. @science.org

📣 Lecture announcement 📣 The next lecture in our series ASHE meets HUMAN ORIGINS is already this Friday! Meet our new Independent Junior Research Group Leader Dr. Jaap Saers, and learn about his work. Attendance is open for everyone, via Zoom: lnkd.in/dU58FCvr, Passcode: 386251.

The concept of extinction was regarded as impossible until the late 18th century. Join Professor Sadiah Qureshi on 28 May as she explores extinction's unnatural history and how we can generate hope and secure justice for all life on earth. https://bit.ly/4tL3JmR

This is an incredible project, I'm so glad it's being undertaken! leakeyfoundation.org/learn/oral-h...

"On that first-ever visit by Broom to Sterkfontein Caves, he asked quarry manager Barlow, who had previously worked at Taung, if he had ever found anything like the Taung child skull. Barlow replied that he thought he had and promised to keep a look out." 🧪🏺

This is so cool youtu.be/OdO_g1S_MBU?...

Back in Montana after a year-long book-writing sabbatical and I'm pretty pleased about it.

A bit late for #FossilFriday but a heavily dinoturbated area at Hanover Point #IsleofWight. Some fierce weather here at times but this lone ornithopod dinosaur footcast was here when I first visited the island some 30 years ago.

I've been revisiting this 1985 issue lately, with the Taung Child on the cover. An ancient skull rendered in one of the first holograms ever printed on a magazine cover. 🧪

Nice recent article in Nature about sediment DNA and its impacts on human evolution and archaeology, featuring two of our great colleagues here in Vienna, Pere Gelabert and Ben Vernot @heasvienna.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We are looking for a DNA lab manager! The position is for a Senior Scientist (maternity replacement) in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology here in Vienna. Come and work with us in the wonderful fields of ancient DNA and archaeology!! 🧬💀 Link below: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Senior-S...

Interested in how outdated Eurocentric views continue to shape ideas on our species' spread beyond Africa, and how the dating of many key archaeological and fossil sites is much less certain that sometimes claimed? Sounds like you need to read my recent paper, www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

this is ofc stephen jay gould making me cry about some rocks 🥲

"In many primate species, large groups regularly split into smaller ones, often reducing competition for resources. But in chimpanzees, permanent fissions are extraordinarily rare." news.asu.edu/20260409-sci...

🧪🏺🦣 Fellow researchers: please check PR for your projects and do not accept the use of gen- #AI artwork for promotion if you would not use it in your scientific publications...

🏺🦣 🐢 V. cool to see we now have evidence that not only were #Neanderthals around the Mediterranean & in Iberia eating tortoises, but others in Germany during the warm Eemian interglacial were also eating pond turtles - I wrote about this possibility in #Kindred! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The day has finally come. The Story of Birds is published in the USA and Canada today!!

Slowly coming back to life after months of pretty consuming work on the book. I just finished a big round of edits and sent it off to my editor a few days ago. What have I missed, friends?

We’re looking for researchers in any discipline of natural history: if you have a paper coming out and you want to pitch @pbseons.bsky.social on a potential episode about it, send me a DM! #scicomm #paleosky #FossilFriday (Arsinoitherium says please and thank you!)

🚨 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...

Latest #Artemis image to drop is my newest favourite! "A New View of the Moon" ICONIC! 🔭🧪 📷: NASA images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

We nestle some beloveds into a tiny box atop an explosion, which hurls them farther than any other has ever gone. And we do it …because. To see what we find, see what we’ll learn, about the Moon and Earth and ourselves. It is one of the best, and strangest, things we have ever done. 🌕 #ArtemisII

Deep in the details of a 1985 Nat Geo special issue today, "The Search for Early Man." 📸 Lucy on the move.

This image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew. Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

I love this! The brilliant Holly Dunsworth is reviewing Sapiens, one page at a time, separating myth from fact… Let’s dive in! ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/03/sapi...

It's good to be reminded these days that science, and scientists, still fucking rule. 🚀