In The News: Department of Anthropology

Evolution News & Science Today

In recent Evolution News articles (Bechly 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018), I have commented on paleoanthropological discoveries that overturned the cherished out-of-Africa scenario. Now, the rewriting of the story of human evolution continues with undampened enthusiasm. In a special report series, “Rewriting human evolution,” the journal New Scientist featured an article “Who are you? How the story of human origins is being rewritten” (Barras 2017) reviewing a lot of this modern research. This summer the article “Asia’s mysterious role in the early origins of humanity” (Douglas 2018a) was appropriately added to the series, because indeed many of the revolutionary new discoveries were made in China and the Indian subcontinent.

Deutschlandfunk

The lifestyle of Hadza in Tanzania could soon be a thing of the past.

Science Mag

Whether in villages on the coast of Ghana or in the mountains of Rwanda, asking for people's poop is a good icebreaker, Mathieu Groussin says. "Everybody laughs," says Groussin, a microbiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. "Especially when we stress that we need the whole fecal sample and show them the big bowl."

Restonic

There are two kinds of sleepers in this world. Night owls who have energy well into the evening and go to bed late. And early birds, the ones who subscribe to the early-to-bed-early-to-rise regimen. You probably have a good idea of which category you fall into most of the time, but you might not know why or how to switch over into the other camp. Or even if you should.

National Geographic

Dozens of swallowtail butterflies are dancing in the air, and we pull the car over to watch. We’ve been on the road in Belize for nearly three hours with no shortage of sightseeing along the way. The drive from San Ignacio winds through San Antonio, a Maya town that is also the home of my tour guide, Israel Canto. We drive through the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, and the deserted sustainable logging town next door. We take a pit stop to stretch our legs in a massive tunnel system–the Rio Frío Cave. Alas, we are on the final stretch, a few miles of dirt road leading to the largest Maya site in Belize–larger than its famous neighbor, Tikal in Guatemala. We are arriving at Caracol.

Science News

A laser-shooting eye in the sky has revealed the previously unappreciated size and complexity of ancient Maya civilization, both before and during its presumed heyday, scientists say.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Students in UNLV’s Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion class learn about mystical topics such as ritual magic, dream magic, vision quests and shamanism.

The Splendid Table

It may not seem obvious at first, but the pollination prowess of bees affects much of what, how and why we eat. And it goes far beyond honey served from a jar.

Popular Science

We have a strange nostalgia for our hunter-gatherer days. Despite the fact that many of our ancestors died grim deaths at the hands of animal teeth and simple infections, we seem to cling to the idea that humans were somehow healthier and just, well, better when living off the land. It’s for this reason that many turn to diets based on what either ancestral humans or modern-day hunter-gatherers would eat.

Popular Science

We have a strange nostalgia for our hunter-gatherer days. Despite the fact that many of our ancestors died grim deaths at the hands of animal teeth and simple infections, we seem to cling to the idea that humans were somehow healthier and just, well, better when living off the land. It’s for this reason that many turn to diets based on what either ancestral humans or modern-day hunter-gatherers would eat.

Daily Mail

Ancient tools and bones unearthed in China suggest our early hominid ancestors left Africa and arrived in Asia 270,000 years earlier than previously thought.

NBC News

The remains of 13 Chinese men who came to Nevada in the 1800s were reburied Tuesday after being exhumed more than two decades ago for archaeological study.