Human Evolution

Oh hey! I'm an anthropologist who studies human evolution. Since I've got you here for the next 30-45 seconds, lets talk about what my field needs. Human evolution involves multi- and interdisciplinary methods and amazingly intelligent people connecting around the world. We answer questions about how you and I evolved to have brains large enough to talk in elevators or why we started walking on two legs. There is so much that we don't know yet. If we fall behind in this field, our nation could be left in the dust.  You know how we say it's important to learn from our history? Myself and my colleagues  are uncovering histories we didn't know existed. We need funding as soon as possible. It could cover our travel, supplies, field assistants, publishing costs, etc. Our nation could become a leader in this field, giving us opportunities to work in more places and make more discoveries about humanity. I'd love to continue this discussion with you and your constituent

The craziest thing happened to me today. I left my neanderthal tribe early in the morning to try to gather some plants for lunch and I saw… him. He was so much taller than me, I couldn’t have missed him. I’ve never seen a large… browridge. He was standing over a large mammal holding a spear… I don’t know what it is about a man who can hunt. I had to snap out of it. Dad definitely wouldn’t approve because this guy was definitely different than our tribe. I ducked behind a tree, but it has been so cold lately it wasn’t much cover. Ugh… I was starving… we haven’t been able to hunt as much as we used to because of the cold. My stomach started growling.   Before I could even hatch an escape plan, I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was him. We couldn’t really understand each other, but I think he said his name was heidelbergensis. He was so kind. He brought me to his little shelter he had built outside of his tribes settlement and cooked me dinner. I don’t know how my tribe will feel about soc

When I was in Myanmar a few years ago, I got to hold hands with several extant monkeys and apes. Believe me when I say that the weirdest part of being face to face with a non-human primate is how similar their hands look and feel up close. They are, however, specialized in many ways that ours aren’t. During climbing, apes must support their body weight, right? It’s like when we were little and played on the monkey bars, except they do this on uneven and sometimes unreliable tree branches for extended amounts of time. Because of this, they have elongated palms and fingers and stiffer hand joints, which leaves us with shorter palms and more mobile wrists.   Ape’s terrestrial locomotion, typically knuckle walking, is typically thought of as primitive. The nearly complete Ardipithicus hand fossils put this into question. Ardipithicus hands were much more flexible than those of African apes, with the midcarpal joint being even more flexible than our own. Basically, the human hand is likely

The obturator externes groove is the groove on the back end of the femur neck. It allows for the connection of the obturator externes muscle, which is important for bipedal locomotion. Simply put, it serves to steady the hip joint and allow us bipeds to flex and rotate our thigh. By bridging the leg and hip, it allows the hip to support the body’s wight and allow upright walking. In the Orrorin bones, this groove is clearly visible in two of the specimens. The presence of the groove reveals that the species often hyper-extended their femora and, thus, used frequent bipedalism. It is interesting that chimpanzees, who occasionally walk upright, do not have obturator externes grooves. What this points to is that Orrorin and other species with these grooves used bipedal locomotion frequently enough to require these grooves to support their bodyweight.  The existence of these grooves in Orrorin, is indicative of frequent upright posture and bipedal locomotion. However, this doesn’t mean the

Fun fact: chimpanzees aren’t the only ape species we share significant DNA with. Many researchers have found that bonobos share about 98.7% of their DNA with humans. Furthermore, about 1.6% of that shared DNA is unique to bonobos and humans, not chimpanzees (Prufer, Kay et al.).   I’ll admit I don’t love this question because of its speciesist overtones. It pushes the idea that we are superior because we were on the ‘right side’ of this evolutionary split. As someone who studies Primatology, I get this question A LOT. I know it usually comes from a genuine place, but it is a really ill-informed question. In order to answer this question, however, it is important to frame it knowing that humans didn’t really come from chimps. We didn’t just evolve to be modern humans, while our chimp cousins remained in the trees. It’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that, but…. What I usually say: We didn’t “come” from chimpanzees in the way that you are thinking. We share a common ancestor from