30 years ago today, December 31st 1995, the last ever Calvin & Hobbes comic strip was published. Even now, I still find it so poignant & moving.

There’s nothing wrong with common sense until you dig a little and learn that common sense is wrong. Thanks @profgalloway.com for providing a great example of common sense that I’ve gotten a kick out of doubting. Thanks @prosocialworld.bsky.social for hosting. www.prosocial.world/posts/whats-...

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

It turns out that the Gen Z lovechild of Kyuss and Babes in Toyland was the sound I needed for 2025. 🔥

Human Evolution in Backwaters, Satellites, and Republics: How Political Change Impacts Paleoanthropology in a Shifting Landscape of Winners and Losers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

One of the two human evolution news roundups I wrote to close out the year! 🧪🏺

...on Christmas. #PunkRockDadJoke (Have yourself a merry little one)

Fully-Funded PhD in Human Origins – University of Tübingen, Germany. PhD role in archaeology & paleoecology. Eligibility: Master’s degree. Deadline: 31 January 2026. Apply: higherjobz.com/fully-funded... #AcademicJobs #ArchaeologyJobs #Paleoanthropology #GermanyJobs @unituebingen.bsky.social

A legend🫡🥃 Gave the best 1 minute bass guitar lesson ever 🎯👌✊ Asked about his style compared to others; “The basic difference is most bass players sound like this. Whereas I sound quite different!” (Cranks up the amp to maximum, plays and faces melt 😂)! #Lemmy youtu.be/FT4nWq3sI7s?...

Las diferencias en dimensiones coronales de los molares de tres cráneos de Dmanisi llevan a Nery et al a sugerir dos taxones: Homo georgicus para el cráneo 5, y Homo caucasi para los cráneos 2 y 3... Testing the taxonomy of Dmanisi hominin fossils through dental crown area doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Curator of Education job (tenure-track Assistant Professor) at the Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado Boulder! Salary $90-$100K, 9 month full time position. Apply by Jan 21. jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Happy #WinterSolstice ❄️ In Chaco Canyon in the US Southwest, ancient monumental roads align with the winter solstice sunrise over Mount Taylor. Features of both land and sky were (and still are) ritually important to the region's Indigenous people. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Very happy to see our work on the Paranthropus boisei hand highlighted here. It was an incredible fossil to study amidst a great year of Paranthropus discoveries.

While stories of singular DNA changes that drove evolution of human brain/behaviour remain seductive, advances across multiple fields of biology cast doubt on such simplistic narratives of our origins. A new paper from my lab shows how biobanks may speak to this fundamental question.🧪 Explainer🧵👇1/n

Professional anatomist here. I label this diagram "Job Security."

Will an anthropologist be able to identify your sex and gender from your bones 100 years from now? I sure hope so! Read my essay on the limited and limiting methods we currently have for sex estimation to learn where the science has room to improve. www.prosocial.world/posts/an-ant...

I *do* need more chimpanzee or colobus hand bones! MORE DATA.

Great blog post from Karen Baab and colleagues explaining the new reconstruction of the face in the 1.6-1.5 million year old DAN5 specimen of Homo erectus from Gona, Ethiopia. It shows an intriguing blend of traits characteristic of early Homo & more derived populations of Homo erectus.

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) are the smallest of the gorilla subspecies and the most widespread. They live in small stable family groups led by a silverback male. Threatened by poaching, disease, climate change, and habitat degradation and destruction. Critically Endangered.

When I "meow" at my cats, they only reply if I do it in their specific register. "Living with humans...likely favored cats that could flexibly adjust their meows. Our results support the idea that meows have evolved into a highly adaptable tool for negotiating life in a human-dominated world."

Thank you to the @leakeyfoundation.org for writing this great news piece about our research, and thanks to Evan, Meredith, and their team for coming up with such a compelling name: The great mucus mystery! leakeyfoundation.org/the-great-mu...

Today we’re reviewing the paradoxically and yet aptly named Teenage Cave Man (1958), the story of a 30-something teenage rebel who dares to break the rules and explore beyond his Stone Age tribe’s borders – and discovers a shocking twist!! 🧪🏺 youtu.be/ktHzfX7qusQ

"Moderate hip and knee flexion with slight ankle dorsiflexion yielded the most stable postures but compromised head mobility and vertical support. These trade-offs explain chimpanzees’ limited bipedal capabilities and short bout durations observed in the wild."

Makassar tarsiers (Tarsius fuscus) occur on the southwestern peninsula of Sulawesi. Uniquely, they make their nests in honeycomb formations near the entrances of small karst caves. Threatened by habitat loss, use of agricultural pesticides and herbicides, and predation by domestic pets. Vulnerable.

Geometric morphometrics isn't the right method for the goals of this study & it captures only minor shape differences. Functional anatomy needs underlying mechanical models to guide design & interpretation of our measurements. Unfortunately, shape analysis alone doesn't tell us much about function.

A fun, engaging discussion of our team's work on the Paranthropus hand. Its combo of features help reconstruct the ancestral condition for Homo (i.e., what would be "transitional") but the fossil also shows specially derived traits that converge on Gorilla. It's its own thing. #paleoanthropology 🧪 🏺

Congrats to our coauthor Joseph Won (PhD Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center) on his 1st publication. Curvature of the hand & foot proximal phalanges varies between two orangutan species consistent with differences in their substrate use (all trees vs. some ground use). 🧪

Martin et al argue the Little Foot skeleton (StW 573) is distinct from Australopithecus africanus but shouldn't be attributed to A. prometheus, because MLD 1, the original fossil called "A. prometheus" was sunk into A. africanus. By the rules of taxonomy, StW 573 needs a new name. #paleoanthropology

"Ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data support a dual-origin model for cat dispersal, indicating an initial spread from Anatolia to Europe by Neolithic farmers ~6400 years ago, followed by a second wave from Egypt ~2000 years ago." 🧪 #cats

I'm always thankful for the Drive-By Truckers.

The 3.4 million-year-old Burtele foot from Ethiopia had a grasping big toe & more flexible midfoot than seen in contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy's species). This suggested a mystery lineage parallel to A. afarensis. Now we might know who that foot belonged to. #paleoanthropology 🧪🏺

Lovely video on cool primates, but it's a common misconception that apes have especially flexible wrists. All living apes have more pronation and supination of the forearm (radioulnar joints), but African apes in particular have an overall low range of motion at the wrist joints. #primates 🧪

Good summary of ongoing field work and early hominin fossil discoveries in the Afar region of Ethiopia with some nice historical context. #paleoanthropology 🧪🏺

Crossed that final river. RIP Jimmy. Thanks for the tunes.

Archaeologists discover that Neanderthals ate the women and children first. 🧪🏺

Can't resist a mashup of my music and comparative anatomy interests. Fun fact: though written by Jagger and Richards "Wild Horses" was first released by The Flying Burrito Brothers (1970) before showing up on The RS's Sticky Fingers (1971). #rocknroll #music #anatomy 🧪 youtu.be/MchWI3sLUQo?...

🦴 New study reveals how teen growth and puberty shape the femur from inside out. Analyzing medieval femora, researchers found sex-specific “medullary contractions” during adolescence—especially in females & varying by region Muñoz-Guarinos et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

"female fertility and infant survivorship increased after males in the Ngogo chimpanzee community killed members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory." 🧪

New video for a great song off an old record. It's "official" but I wonder if it's Westerberg sanctioned.

Interested in the evolution of human language? Check out our new paper in @science.org where we synthesize latest findings and outline a multifaceted, bio-cultural approach for studying how language evolved. Super proud of this work, and hoping it leads to exciting new research! tinyurl.com/ykacvanp

The Department of Anatomy at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM), Old Westbury campus, invites applications for a three-year Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow position. (NOTE: the job-ad link is slow to load for some reason) #anatomy #anated 🧪

Yunxian does not disprove Out of Africa youtu.be/jA1I66ghcSw

"Overall, the locomotor adaptive strategy of chimpanzees appears to emphasize versatility and maneuverability rather than energy-efficient locomotion" 🧪

Dang, hard disagree. The best papers to write and read are works of art, not merely a list of data and statements. Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.

Analyses of fossils and ancient genomics reveal how early human populations bred less wolf-like companions, and might have traded them around the world. 🏺🐕