‘Earliest’ evidence of modern human culture found How far back do you think human culture goes? You know, the sharing of creative ideas like tools and creation? Decades of study on some basic tools pulled from a cave in South Africa have finally determined that traces of modern human culture surfaced as far back as 44,000 years ago. That’s more than double the last estimates! The San hunter-gatherers of South Africa (one pictured above) still use basic bone, wood and stone tools. Artifacts found in this South African cave are so close to the tools used today that there’s no doubt that 44,000 years ago, a cultured clan was making and using them regularly. They even mastered organic poisons taken from castor beans to tip their spears with. This is a very cool find, and adds some detail to the timeline of human evolution. Considering that our modern anatomy only showed up ~150,000 years ago, it’s exciting to discover that shared tool creation and culture weren’t that far behind.  So let’s all try to act a little cultured today in their honor, shall we?? (via BBC News)
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‘Earliest’ evidence of modern human culture found

How far back do you think human culture goes? You know, the sharing of creative ideas like tools and creation?

Decades of study on some basic tools pulled from a cave in South Africa have finally determined that traces of modern human culture surfaced as far back as 44,000 years ago. That’s more than double the last estimates!

The San hunter-gatherers of South Africa (one pictured above) still use basic bone, wood and stone tools. Artifacts found in this South African cave are so close to the tools used today that there’s no doubt that 44,000 years ago, a cultured clan was making and using them regularly. They even mastered organic poisons taken from castor beans to tip their spears with.

This is a very cool find, and adds some detail to the timeline of human evolution. Considering that our modern anatomy only showed up ~150,000 years ago, it’s exciting to discover that shared tool creation and culture weren’t that far behind. 

So let’s all try to act a little cultured today in their honor, shall we??

(via BBC News)

Source: BBC

Out of the Mouth of Babes Eric Michael Johnson takes an anthropologist’s look at the recent TIME magazine “attachment parenting” breastfeeding fiasco: One thing I’ve learned in my research on human evolution is that people are quick to assume that what they do is “natural” simply because they don’t know of other examples where things are done differently. The primate brain is a pattern recognition machine and is adapted to quickly identify regularities in our environment. But when we are presented with the same pattern over and over again it is easy to fall victim to what is known as confirmation bias, or coming to false conclusions because the evidence we use does not come from a broad enough sample. In order to avoid falling for this bias on the question of extended breastfeeding the best way forward would be to draw from the largest sample possible: the entire primate lineage. If we step back from the shock, what does our primate lineage have to say about the Western world’s view of breastfeeding behavior? When body weights, life stages and weaning ages were compared among 135 primate species, the results suggest that we in the west seem to be disregarding quite a bit of evolution by weaning our children early, with possible public health consequences. More at the link above. (via The Primate Diaries, artwork by Nathaniel Gold)
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Out of the Mouth of Babes

Eric Michael Johnson takes an anthropologist’s look at the recent TIME magazine “attachment parenting” breastfeeding fiasco:

One thing I’ve learned in my research on human evolution is that people are quick to assume that what they do is “natural” simply because they don’t know of other examples where things are done differently. The primate brain is a pattern recognition machine and is adapted to quickly identify regularities in our environment. But when we are presented with the same pattern over and over again it is easy to fall victim to what is known as confirmation bias, or coming to false conclusions because the evidence we use does not come from a broad enough sample. In order to avoid falling for this bias on the question of extended breastfeeding the best way forward would be to draw from the largest sample possible: the entire primate lineage.

If we step back from the shock, what does our primate lineage have to say about the Western world’s view of breastfeeding behavior? When body weights, life stages and weaning ages were compared among 135 primate species, the results suggest that we in the west seem to be disregarding quite a bit of evolution by weaning our children early, with possible public health consequences. More at the link above.

(via The Primate Diaries, artwork by Nathaniel Gold)

Source: blogs.scientificamerican.com

The Incredible Hulk’s Skull Anatomy With remarkable attention to anatomical detail, Glendon Mellow gives us an imagined cranial cross-section of the Hulk. I really love how he studied related primate and hominid bone structure and musculature in order to come up with a biologically realistic Hulk. I give it a 10! (via Gelndon Mellow at Symbiartic)
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The Incredible Hulk’s Skull Anatomy

With remarkable attention to anatomical detail, Glendon Mellow gives us an imagined cranial cross-section of the Hulk. I really love how he studied related primate and hominid bone structure and musculature in order to come up with a biologically realistic Hulk. I give it a 10!

(via Gelndon Mellow at Symbiartic)

Source: blogs.scientificamerican.com

Are Human Societies Starting to Resemble Ant Colonies?

The Smithsonian Institution’s Mark Moffett recently wrote that human societies may have more in common with ants than other primate groups.

“… modern humans have more in common with some ants than we do with our closest relatives the chimpanzees. With a maximum size of about 100, no chimpanzee group has to deal with issues of public health, infrastructure, distribution of goods and services, market economies, mass transit problems, assembly lines and complex teamwork, agriculture and animal domestication, warfare and slavery.”

He studied ant societies, one so large that its trillions of members stretch 621 miles across California, and found that the ability of a “society” (it feels weird to equate ant colonies to such a thing) requires accepting that many members will be anonymous and that recognizing one another doesn’t really matter in the scope of the whole society.

He draws lines to things like nationalism and patriotism, ideas that have popped up fairly recently in human evolution, and right about the time that our populations exploded. So anonymity might be the very thing that lets a society grow to the limits of its environment.

I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s a good or bad thing.

Humanity’s Best Friend: How Dogs May Have Helped Humans Beat the Neanderthals Neanderthals lived and thrived in Europe for 250,000 years. Then humans showed up. Within 10,000 years, they were extinct. How did humans crowd them out, evolutionarily? A new theory says that the beginnings of paleolithic dog domestication could have given early humans an edge: Dogs would help humans to identify their prey; but they would also work, the theory goes, as beasts of burden — like the Blackfeet and Hidatsa of the American West, who bred large, strong dogs specifically for hauling strapped-on packs. (Paleolithic dogs were large: They had, their skeletons suggest, a body mass of at least 70 pounds and a shoulder height of at least 2 feet — which would make them, at minimum, the size of a modern-day German shepherd.) Since transporting animal carcasses is an energy-intensive task, getting dogs to do that work would mean that humans could concentrate their energy on more productive endeavors: hunting, gathering, reproducing. (↬ The Atlantic)
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Humanity’s Best Friend: How Dogs May Have Helped Humans Beat the Neanderthals

Neanderthals lived and thrived in Europe for 250,000 years. Then humans showed up. Within 10,000 years, they were extinct. How did humans crowd them out, evolutionarily?

A new theory says that the beginnings of paleolithic dog domestication could have given early humans an edge:

Dogs would help humans to identify their prey; but they would also work, the theory goes, as beasts of burden — like the Blackfeet and Hidatsa of the American West, who bred large, strong dogs specifically for hauling strapped-on packs. (Paleolithic dogs were large: They had, their skeletons suggest, a body mass of at least 70 pounds and a shoulder height of at least 2 feet — which would make them, at minimum, the size of a modern-day German shepherd.) Since transporting animal carcasses is an energy-intensive task, getting dogs to do that work would mean that humans could concentrate their energy on more productive endeavors: hunting, gathering, reproducing.

(↬ The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Mobile phone data shows signs that we're in a new matriarchy

Oxford’s Robin Dunbar (of the famous Dunbar’s number) has a new study out that uses mobile phone data to draw a picture of gender-based social structures in Western societies. 

By analyzing billions of phone calls and text messages among men and women of various ages, he found that women primarily drive romantic relationships, and from a younger age than men. After about 15 years of a man filling the role of “best friend”, women appear to shift their primary social focus to a child (usually another female, and assumed to be a daughter).

None of this means that mothers prefer female children or that they lose interest in male partners, but rather argues that most relationships (husband-wife, parent-child) are driven by women, at least on a structural level. Men’s relationship styles seem to be much more casual and transient, according to phone use anyway.

Their model is a framework built around traditional heterosexual, child-bearing relationships, and while that doesn’t completely describe modern society, it’s a pretty useful model. 

Does this mean that our society is much more matriarchal than we thought?

Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel

Making the wheel was easy. It was the axle system that took forever. In fact, civilization had already developed metal tools before they perfected the wheel. 

More:

The invention of the wheel was so challenging that it probably happened only once, in one place. However, from that place, it seems to have spread so rapidly across Eurasia and the Middle East that experts cannot say for sure where it originated. The earliest images of wheeled carts have been excavated in Poland and elsewhere in the Eurasian steppes, and this region is overtaking Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) as the wheel’s most likely birthplace. According to Asko Parpola, an Indologist at the University of Helsinki in Finland, there are linguistic reasons to believe the wheel originated with the Tripolye people of modern-day Ukraine. That is, the words associated with wheels and wagons derive from the language of that culture.


Can you help me out with some info on low-carb/”caveman” diets? My father is really into the idea and claims it’s really healthy, but my understanding of metabolism (and granted it’s been a while) is that the body needs carbs to break down into sugars for energy. The weight loss is therefore a side effect of essentially starving yourself… well sort of. Anyway, do you know of any studies on the long-term effects of such a diet? Is it in any way a good idea? Thanks! From shotofindigo Part of “Joe’s Answer Bag Week” This is a complicated question, and it has a long answer (and surely an incomplete one, so follow the links below for more info). TL;DR opinion = The “Paleo diet” is more dietary fad with lots of incomplete science and serious ethical concerns. But time and research could prove it feasible. The “Paleolithic Diet” is a relatively new one in terms of fashion and fad. And it is a fad, for better or worse. Some people view it as a more natural alignment with our genetics and evolution, and some view it as a nostalgic paleofantasy, a desire to return to a supposedly more simple and environmentally-connected era. I’m troubled by it for three reasons, but also encouraged by some of its indirect effects. If you want to distill the essence of the Paleo Diet, picture yourself as a paleolithic hunter-gatherer holding an Atkins Diet book (of course, also assuming that someone in a time machine came back and taught you to read and invented a paleo-printing press). Meats, seafood and eggs are good for protein and fats. Nuts, fruits and fungi are quality oils, carbohydrates and vitamins. Add vegetables for fiber, minerals and more micronutrients. Almost any grain or starch carbohydrate is off limits, as is dairy or sugar. Safe, but is it “better”? Were our ancestor’s diets more adapted to human biology than our own? And will that improve the health of the modern, lumpy Homo sapiens? First we need to take a long look at the motives behind this diet, and then ask what we really know about human evolution and behavior. One of my problems with the Paleo Diet is that is plays on Western desires of “weight loss at any cost”. Of course, the health risks of being overweight are “oh duh” obvious. With 1.6 billion+ people overweight globally, and >74% of Americans above their ideal weight, weight is clearly a problem (the obesity stats are even worse). But look at this website, and then tell me that Paleo marketing doesn’t play to the fad and fear mentality of every late night weight loss infomercial. Not a positive image. I also have some reservations about how strong the science is. We know that our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and didn’t eat processed sugars and factory-farmed meats. But the idea that everyone foraged for a diet rich in lean meat, nuts, green veggies and no grain is a false one. Many anthropologists believe that earlier humans adapted to their local food web. Our genetics give us the ability to eat an extremely wide variety of foods, and we can even pick up new ones (as Northern Europeans did about 5,000 years ago when we began drinking milk as adults). We ate what was around us. For costal humans that meant seafood and veggies, and for inland humans it meant grains and fruits. Some Inuit peoples survived with absolutely no vegetables in their diet. We clearly have a very adaptable digestive system.  Is there a better explanation for the way we eat (and why we crave sugars and are so good at getting fat)? I say yes. We have enormous brains, so big that they can barely fit through the birth canal and do most of their growing in childhood. Our brain is 2% of our body wight, but it consumes as much as 25% of our calories. Humans had to adapt ways to get a ton of calories into our bodies with as little effort as possible. That meant fire to cook food, tools to break it down, and harvesting grains to provide complex carbs for sugar energy. If we ate like chimps, we’d spend six hours a day chewing to feed our brains. There’s a great TED talk about the mini-brain in our gut, too. Instead of there being the One Magic Diet of Olde, we are actually adapted to getting as many calories as we can from a multitude of foods for our big brains, complex carbs being one of those (not candy bars). The Paleo diet is also expensive. In a world of 7 billion people and growing, we should be looking for ways to reduce meat and fish intake (or at least make them more responsible), not increase them. Our poorest citizens are also our most obese, and this diet philosophy would be an unfair burden on those who can afford it the least. The Paleo diet is incompatible with a growing or poor population. I am encouraged by one aspect of the Paleo diet. It makes people more conscious of their food intake, and puts an emphasis on natural food as opposed to processed. That’s one place where the biology is solid. And people who are more conscious of their diet are more active and healthier for a multitude of reasons. It can lead to a positive health philosophy, even if it’s not inherent in our genetic code. The idea that our nutritional biology stopped evolving 100,000-10,000 years ago is false, and our diets are equally variable. Sure, the growth of processed, sugar-heavy foods in the past century is not compatible with the rate of human evolution. But when we look at the energy costs of having the huge brains that make us human, at least we know why so many crave the modern diet that’s sickening them. Is going Paleo the answer? I don’t think so, but there’s lots of pieces we could pick from it to apply to healthier modern Homo sapiens. Further reading: This essay by Greg Downey is truly awesome, and breaks down Paleo diets to brain growth to cooking to primate physiology better than I ever could. Also great, Marlene Zuk in the New York Times.
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Can you help me out with some info on low-carb/”caveman” diets? My father is really into the idea and claims it’s really healthy, but my understanding of metabolism (and granted it’s been a while) is that the body needs carbs to break down into sugars for energy. The weight loss is therefore a side effect of essentially starving yourself… well sort of. Anyway, do you know of any studies on the long-term effects of such a diet? Is it in any way a good idea? Thanks!

Part of “Joe’s Answer Bag Week”

This is a complicated question, and it has a long answer (and surely an incomplete one, so follow the links below for more info). TL;DR opinion = The “Paleo diet” is more dietary fad with lots of incomplete science and serious ethical concerns. But time and research could prove it feasible.

The “Paleolithic Diet” is a relatively new one in terms of fashion and fad. And it is a fad, for better or worse. Some people view it as a more natural alignment with our genetics and evolution, and some view it as a nostalgic paleofantasy, a desire to return to a supposedly more simple and environmentally-connected era. I’m troubled by it for three reasons, but also encouraged by some of its indirect effects.

If you want to distill the essence of the Paleo Diet, picture yourself as a paleolithic hunter-gatherer holding an Atkins Diet book (of course, also assuming that someone in a time machine came back and taught you to read and invented a paleo-printing press). Meats, seafood and eggs are good for protein and fats. Nuts, fruits and fungi are quality oils, carbohydrates and vitamins. Add vegetables for fiber, minerals and more micronutrients. Almost any grain or starch carbohydrate is off limits, as is dairy or sugar. Safe, but is it “better”?

Were our ancestor’s diets more adapted to human biology than our own? And will that improve the health of the modern, lumpy Homo sapiens? First we need to take a long look at the motives behind this diet, and then ask what we really know about human evolution and behavior.

One of my problems with the Paleo Diet is that is plays on Western desires of “weight loss at any cost”. Of course, the health risks of being overweight are “oh duh” obvious. With 1.6 billion+ people overweight globally, and >74% of Americans above their ideal weight, weight is clearly a problem (the obesity stats are even worse). But look at this website, and then tell me that Paleo marketing doesn’t play to the fad and fear mentality of every late night weight loss infomercial. Not a positive image.

I also have some reservations about how strong the science is. We know that our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and didn’t eat processed sugars and factory-farmed meats. But the idea that everyone foraged for a diet rich in lean meat, nuts, green veggies and no grain is a false one. Many anthropologists believe that earlier humans adapted to their local food web. Our genetics give us the ability to eat an extremely wide variety of foods, and we can even pick up new ones (as Northern Europeans did about 5,000 years ago when we began drinking milk as adults). We ate what was around us. For costal humans that meant seafood and veggies, and for inland humans it meant grains and fruits. Some Inuit peoples survived with absolutely no vegetables in their diet. We clearly have a very adaptable digestive system. 

Is there a better explanation for the way we eat (and why we crave sugars and are so good at getting fat)? I say yes. We have enormous brains, so big that they can barely fit through the birth canal and do most of their growing in childhood. Our brain is 2% of our body wight, but it consumes as much as 25% of our calories. Humans had to adapt ways to get a ton of calories into our bodies with as little effort as possible. That meant fire to cook food, tools to break it down, and harvesting grains to provide complex carbs for sugar energy. If we ate like chimps, we’d spend six hours a day chewing to feed our brains. There’s a great TED talk about the mini-brain in our gut, too. Instead of there being the One Magic Diet of Olde, we are actually adapted to getting as many calories as we can from a multitude of foods for our big brains, complex carbs being one of those (not candy bars).

The Paleo diet is also expensive. In a world of 7 billion people and growing, we should be looking for ways to reduce meat and fish intake (or at least make them more responsible), not increase them. Our poorest citizens are also our most obese, and this diet philosophy would be an unfair burden on those who can afford it the least. The Paleo diet is incompatible with a growing or poor population.

I am encouraged by one aspect of the Paleo diet. It makes people more conscious of their food intake, and puts an emphasis on natural food as opposed to processed. That’s one place where the biology is solid. And people who are more conscious of their diet are more active and healthier for a multitude of reasons. It can lead to a positive health philosophy, even if it’s not inherent in our genetic code.

The idea that our nutritional biology stopped evolving 100,000-10,000 years ago is false, and our diets are equally variable. Sure, the growth of processed, sugar-heavy foods in the past century is not compatible with the rate of human evolution. But when we look at the energy costs of having the huge brains that make us human, at least we know why so many crave the modern diet that’s sickening them. Is going Paleo the answer? I don’t think so, but there’s lots of pieces we could pick from it to apply to healthier modern Homo sapiens.

Further reading: This essay by Greg Downey is truly awesome, and breaks down Paleo diets to brain growth to cooking to primate physiology better than I ever could. Also great, Marlene Zuk in the New York Times.

Neanderthal Jewelry Can Kick Your Jewelry’s Ass That’s right, a new paper out in PLoS One offers an idea that once you’ve heard it, you won’t care if it’s true: Neanderthals may have worn eagle talons as jewelry. This is supported by man-made grooves and markings found on talons from several Neanderthal sites in France and Italy. Of course, they nerd it up by calling them “terminal phalanges of birds of prey,” but that doesn’t change the fact that they might have worn eagle talons as jewelry. And yes, Napoleon, they were large. Hopefully science will support this theory for perpetuity, because I want to believe. (via The Atlantic)
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Neanderthal Jewelry Can Kick Your Jewelry’s Ass

That’s right, a new paper out in PLoS One offers an idea that once you’ve heard it, you won’t care if it’s true: Neanderthals may have worn eagle talons as jewelry. This is supported by man-made grooves and markings found on talons from several Neanderthal sites in France and Italy.

Of course, they nerd it up by calling them “terminal phalanges of birds of prey,” but that doesn’t change the fact that they might have worn eagle talons as jewelry.

And yes, Napoleon, they were large. Hopefully science will support this theory for perpetuity, because I want to believe.

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

There’s More to That Red Plastic Cup Than You Thought We know that drinking is a social activity. But did you know that the red plastic cup is related to social drinking rituals from Polynesia to Africa? It puts attendees on equal footing, it’s a sign of community and sharing. Our red plastic cups work similarly. Cup in hand, we mingle. Liberated by the social permission granted by the red plastic cup, we catch up with old friends and make new ones. It becomes a factor that connects attendees at the event—we all have a red plastic cup, so we all belong. And we assert that these cups are ours by writing our name on them, which further making them a handy tool for socialization. This sort of possession also minimizes the burden on our hosts to have a bounty of cups available for guests. No word on whether our ancestors tried to bounce quail eggs into them before slamming fermented fruit juice. (via Anthropology in Practice, Scientific American Blog Network)
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There’s More to That Red Plastic Cup Than You Thought

We know that drinking is a social activity. But did you know that the red plastic cup is related to social drinking rituals from Polynesia to Africa? It puts attendees on equal footing, it’s a sign of community and sharing.

Our red plastic cups work similarly. Cup in hand, we mingle. Liberated by the social permission granted by the red plastic cup, we catch up with old friends and make new ones. It becomes a factor that connects attendees at the event—we all have a red plastic cup, so we all belong. And we assert that these cups are ours by writing our name on them, which further making them a handy tool for socialization. This sort of possession also minimizes the burden on our hosts to have a bounty of cups available for guests.

No word on whether our ancestors tried to bounce quail eggs into them before slamming fermented fruit juice.

(via Anthropology in Practice, Scientific American Blog Network)

Source: blogs.scientificamerican.com