Well! Here we are at the end of the year, and what a year it was!
We had so many incredible discoveries that there is not one video to cover it all! But I decided to make a video of what I thought were some of the top discoveries in Paleoanthropology in 2022.
Buckle, and tune in, for it will be an excellent video as we traverse the last year and revisit some of the biggest stories!
Dear Anthropologists, Department Chairs, Professors, and Leaders in Undergraduate Studies,
As the Cambridge Journal of Human Behaviour Science Communications Officer, I am writing to you. I want to inform you of an exciting opportunity for your undergraduate students.
The Cambridge Journal of Human Behaviour is now calling for submissions for its third issue. (Deadline: February 15th, 2023).
CJHB is an interdisciplinary, ISSN-registered, and peer-reviewed journal publishing undergraduate work worldwide. We are excited to invite you, your students, and your colleagues to participate in the publication of its next issue. For many undergraduates, this proves to be a rare and excellent opportunity for their work to undergo peer reviewing and publishing!
Submissions may include dissertations, projects, and extended essays (max. 5000 words).
Topics include (but are not limited to) Biological Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Natural Sciences, Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, and Philosophy. Interdisciplinary manuscripts are strongly encouraged.
Paleoanthropology is the study, of the need for knowledge, of our deep shared human origins. Where do we come from? It is often a question that many of us find ourselves asking from time to time. For some, the answer is in religion, and if that works for you, then I encourage you to continue on that path.
For many of us, religion doesn’t seem quite so cut, explaining everything we encounter. For those people, science typically takes the place of explaining the world around us.
To answer the questions of “where did we come from,” and even “where are we going,” we need to look no further than our bodies, as the evidence of evolution is as clear and ay in everything that we do and in the way that we are built and function. But to provide even further evidence and to begin to provide the trail, we have what is called “The Fossil Record.”
The fossil record is what we have of the remains of our ancestors, hominins, or nonhuman primates within our genus (and a few preceding it) that show us indeed where we come from that we come from Africa, all of us that we share a typical home and origin story. We are not all that different, and that race is a social construct.
There is but one “race”: the human race. Understanding these things is the keystone to biological and paleoanthropology.
So why should you care? What is there to learn about digging up old fossils and having rigorous debates about social issues and behavior that evolved millions of years ago and persist in today’s society? Well, for one, the most simple thing is that we cannot know where we are going, as individuals or as a society; if we do not know where we have been, if we cannot learn from our mistakes, then we are bound to repeat them. So studying our past, even millions of years ago, is critical to this understanding.
Along with this, there is, of course, the fact that many of us have this passion, this wanderlust to know where we come from. An urge that we cannot explain that we need to know, “Who are we.” While we may never know the answer to this question with the current limitations of science, we know far more now than ever before.
For some, the quest for knowledge is all, and I write this paper for those of you. I hope you enjoy it, I hope you learn from it, and I hope that you can take something away from it. Most importantly, please remember that there is always more to learn! And as Prof. Lee Berger says, “Never Stop Exploring”!.
And with that long and wordy introduction, without further ado and in no particular order, I give you some of the most significant and exciting paleoanthropological discoveries of 2022!
The Red Deer Cave People
While this is not so much of a discovery, it is an important answer that we have found that many people have been wondering about the world in this field for decades since the discovery of this unique cave where human remains that are not precisely matching our morphology were found. These people, who dated around 14,000 years ago, seemed very similar to modern humans (you and I), but they had some distinct differences. They had prominent brow ridges, strangely shaped craniums and orbits, etc. There even was evidence in the cave of skulls being used, possibly as cups or containers. These individuals had culture, were intelligent, and were a mystery because while they had behaviors like modern humans, they did not seem to be us morphologically.
Thanks to Bing Su, a professor at the Kunming Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan who was involved in the research study, we now know that the Red Dear Cave People are modern humans and fit within the area of anatomically modern human variation. They are not a different species, not as memorable as we once thought. Still, they are unique, thanks to regional and geographical microevolution. So are the Red Deer Cave People a new species of human? Not according to the DNA, and while many mysteries still surround these people, we now know much more about who they are.
Sterkfontein Cave
Next up on the list, we have some surprising news coming from a well-known site in South Africa, Sterkfontein Cave. In this cave, the first australopith was found by Dr. Robert Broom and Raymond Dart in the 1930s. But the war interrupted his investigations. It was once thought that these fossils dated to around 2 million years ago, but instead, they now are believed to be closer to four million years old thanks to new dating technologies that have shown this species to be A. africanus. There is so much to learn about this species. These new dates show that the first hominins may not have come from East Africa but rather from the South, where more and more fossils of various species are being discovered daily. These new dates show that we need to be careful when we set dates for things, embrace new technologies to study older discoveries, and ensure that we are accurate with what we are talking about. The new dates for Mrs. Ples show that Africanus is a much older species than once thought, pushing the date of Australopithecines back even further.
The Oldest Face of Europe
One of the main questions regarding genetics and populations is how they moved around, got to where they ended up, and the evidence left behind. Since 2009, a partial jaw bone from a Basal Neanderthal was found in level 9 of Sima del Elefante, a part of the complex of Ataperca in Spain. This jaw was the oldest evidence of our ancestors in Europe, that is, until this year when another partial jaw and tooth were found a few meters lower. These date to 1.4 MYA. Making this partial face the oldest ever seen in all of Europe. This, of course, is a big deal when we are trying to figure out when our ancestors reached Europe, who they were, and what they looked like. While the remains found in these chasms have been attributed to Neanderthals and Hiedelbergensis (Basal Neanderthals), it may be a long while before we know more about this partial mandible. But we know that these creatures, our ancestral cousins, were in Europe, entirely on the far end of Europe, hundreds of thousands of years earlier than we believed. What we will discover next in the area may continue to change that, but for now, the oldest face in Europe has now been found.
Most senior Signs of Humans in the Americas
For many researchers, the people of the Americas are a great and compelling mystery. As the decade’s pass, new hypotheses are formed as new data is collected from thinking people crossed the Bearing Straight thirteen thousand years ago to people sailing across the Atlantic to land on the east coast of the United States. There have been many ideas and hypotheses. And while we generally now know how people got to the North American continent, it is still a mystery. Many new finds kept pushing back when modern humans arrived in the new world. For a long time, the skeleton of a young girl found in South America dates to around thirteen thousand years old, even in South America. So indeed, humans reached North America first? A few new pieces of evidence have been found in the United States, such as the footprints at White Sands National Park, where we know the footprints of modern humans can be dated to around twenty-four thousand years ago. However, a controversial new find, which I will add, is a mammoth hunting site dating to about thirty-seven thousand years old. This site is that of a mammoth that seems to have butcher marks covering the bones, with bone tool assemblages left behind. This find was found in the backyard of a local man. While this is a very controversial find, as the marks could have been made by natural elements, more research is needed to determine precisely what happened at this site. But if it proves true, it pushes the existence of modern humans in America tens of thousands of years earlier than once believed.
Homo naledi and Fire
During a lecture by Prof. Lee Berger at the start of December (Which is why I have had to wait to publish this paper), I announced something unique if proven true. As of this writing, we are still waiting for the papers to be published, which are being stalled for unknown reasons. But regardless of what the papers say, we have the physical evidence of ash, charcoal, burned wood, hearths, and hearths. Homo naledi used fire to navigate the caves deep inside Rising Star and even used it to cook food, as we see burned bones in the hearths and remains scattered on the floor. First, Lee, once he got into the Dinaledi Chamber for the first time himself, looked up and saw something that no one expected, soot on the roof. This showed that there must have been a fire in the cave. Controlled fire. Furthermore, on his way out, one of his colleagues, Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, discovered two hearths at the bottom of Dragons Back, an area of the passage you must crawl over and through. This shows much more about what we thought we knew about this species, and while many suspected this for a while, we may now have the proof. And the best part is that Dr. Berger has proclaimed on Twitter that three more impactful announcements are coming about Naledi as soon as they hit the journals. So get ready for more reporting, and be sure to check in for up-to-date news!
Toumai
One of the most controversial topics within Paleoanthropology is when we began to walk upright. As bipedalism is one of the keys that makes us human, it is essential to understand how we first became bipedal. The only natural way that we know how to figure this out is by examining the fossil record. As you should all know, the fossil record is sparse, especially when you go back farther in time. So who was the first hominin? Who was the first bipedal hominin? There are a few contenders, from Orrorin tungenensis to Sahelanthropus tchadensis. The main reason there is so much controversy surrounding the first biped is that Toumai only contains a skull and is highly distorted, so it is hard to tell if it was a biped. But there is good evidence. This year, a few new papers came out. One claimed that Toumai was not biped, and another claimed, using different parts of the remains, that there was no doubt Toumai could walk bipedally but was also adept in the trees. So, while still very controversial, Sahelanthropus tchadensis may be the oldest bipedal hominin.
Toumaï
While that was all fantastic exciting news that will add to what we know about human origins, there is also a big elephant in the room that needs to be addressed, but must be, and with the utmost respect. This year, we lost many famous but prominent, intelligent, and unique contributors to the field.
In Memorandum
While this year might have been great for discoveries, and the advancement of Paleoanthropology as a science, it has been a dark year in other terms. 2022 is one of the darkest years in Paleoanthropology regarding the greats we have lost. As of the time of the writing of this paper, we have lost five unique, influential, and powerful anthropologists. I want to reflect on and respect the explosive contributions the following people have made.s
In loving memory, we remember the following, in no particular order:
Richard Leakey
Isaiah Ngengo
Yves Coppens
A picture taken on December 2, 2016 shows French paleontologist Yves Coppens posing at his home in Paris. (Photo by LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP)
Bill Kimbel
Kimoya Kimeu
Sir Paul Mellars
Andrea Leenen
These individuals have made contributions to our field, the likes of which are rarely seen. Their contributions to analysis, discovery, pure love of the area, and the inspiration they caused in so many others, should be a light we can all follow.
Some of these individuals, and the institutions they once belonged to, and arguably will forever belong to, have started funds in their name to help future students, most notably ASU and the Bill Kimbel Fund.
All of you should look into these funds and donate, and if not, spread the word about them, as they are essential to help future students and keep the memory of these individuals alive.
ZInj, also known as the Nutcracker Man, or more properly Zinjanthropus Bosei or Australopithecus Bosei, is a species that lived about two million years ago.
With a lifestyle and diet extraordinarily different from our own, this is a unique hominin still struggling to find its place among our braided family stream. But one thing is for sure: this is a fantastic find made by the Leakey’s in 1959. *Note I said the 70s in the video, but it was the 50’s.
We have a great deal that we can learn from Zinj, especially when piecing hominin bones back together, as this was in 400 pieces, but Mary and her coworker and dear friend passed recently Kamoya Kimeu. Thanks to their hard work and dedication, you can see the 3D print I am showing you today!
I hope you enjoy this episode; if you did, please be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content like this regularly and much more!
Well, here we are! Today is the big day when we will learn quite a few new details about the enigmatic Homo naledi. Found deep in the African cave system dubbed “Rising Star,”; mysterious bones and remains were found. This was back in 2013, and a great deal has happened since; as I am writing this, I am awaiting Dr. Lee Berger, the lead on the naledi team, to announce new findings and the future of the exploration of the human past. I will cover all the details as they come out today and publish this article ASAP. There are so many things that could be announced today, I have a few ideas we can discuss later after the announcements have been made, but it’s fun to guess!
Homo naledi is a unique species with a mosaic of features, some of which are very modern despite how primitive they were once thought to be; we are learning more and more about this species and putting the puzzle together of who these people were. This species has many mysteries, from probable burial to who knows what else. But we will find out more tonight!
What is going to be announced tonight? Are we going to learn about the use of fire? Or tools? What could it be? Read on to find out!
After losing 55lbs, Dr. Lee Berger himself made it into the Dinaledi chamber, and after sitting down in a corner and looking up he saw that the roof was not pure calcium carbonate. There was a level of burned, blackened soot. Homo naledi did not make it into these deep, dark chambers in this cave in the dark. They had light. They had fire.
On his way out of the Dinaledi chamber, at the space called the Dragon Back, a hearth was discovered, a small one with some burned animal bones, and then next to it, a more significant hearth was found with burned and blackened animal bones. The team realized they were dealing with something on an entirely new level. This prompted them to look in the other spaces they had been in previously to look for signs of the use of fire or different ways that naledi would have navigated the tunnels.
Going back into the Lasedi chamber where the skeleton of Neo was found, where no signs of Homo sapiens have ever been found, in the deepest parts of the cave, they found burned rocks, with ashes at the bottom, and even further in, there was an abundance of burnt bone of small animals, and yet no signs of stone tools at all.
The entire floor is covered in burnt bones, ashes, and even…charcoal. Nothing like this had ever been discovered before. Lee and his team, including many other scientists on my show, have worked together to show that these pieces of charcoal dated to the right time that H.naledi was present. “Everywhere there is a complex juncture or adjacent area, they built a fire and cooked animals.” In chambers where they disposed of the dead, they brought fire but did not cook animals”- Lee Berger.
This small-brained hominin, which lived at the same time as us in some of the same parts of Africa, was using and developing the widespread use of fire for various reasons. So what does this show us? “We may be looking at an actual culture of a different hominin, in a way that we never have before”-Lee Berger. Homo naledi did not see in the dark; they did not navigate these unbelievable caves in pitch black, and they had a fire; this gives us insights into a whole different culture that was alive at the same time as ours; this is groundbreaking.
If Lee never made it into that cave, we would never have seen this, “and it has changed our view of the world forever”-Agustin Fuentes.
There are many mysteries surrounding our long-lost cousins, the Neanderthals. From how they survived to how they went extinct. One thing that has been recently discovered that changes the way we think about Neanderthals is their diet, how they consumed food, and how they even processed it. For a long time, anthropologists have been very wary of giving Neanderthals more credit than they possibly deserve. Still, as we learn more about this enigmatic species, we see how close to us they really are. Their behavior, what they did, and why seem to become much more evident with recent scientific discoveries. Today we will be discussing the discovery of how Neanderthals processed their food, something that is critical to their survival during their time, as well as leading to what we know as cooking and preparing food today.
We once believed that Neanderthals survived off of essential foods and ate them in a state that was raw or hard to consume. But we have found evidence of food processing in Franahithi Cave in the Zagros Mountains near Shandihar cave. Not just animals that were bothered and eaten but instead cooked and prepared. Something that we did not think Neanderthals were capable of until recently. We have learned that Neanderthals could process their food, turning raw materials into more nutritious substances that helped them survive. The range of food that they ate was much more extensive than previously thought. The content of the food they consumed is much more extensive than first believed by Anthropologists.
In Shandihar Cave, we see many remains of food processing, which we thought only modern humans could. Still, it turns out that Neanderthals were also processing their food to make it more digestible and even better tasting. No evidence exists that certain plants, herbs, and spices were used in Neanderthal cooking to flavor bland roots and tubers. Even the meat that they would have collected would have been tempered. This shows that Neanderthals were preparing their food rather than eating whatever they could find when they were looking.
The main point of these discoveries is that Neanderthals were processing their food; they used ingredients for flavors, such as wild mustard and other roots and legumes; it is clear that the Neanderthal diet was much more extensive than once believed. Their control over what they make and eat is comprehensive, thanks to the most recent discoveries in this area.
Adding tasteful ingredients to food preparation seems to have started with Neanderthals and seems to have continued through us; there is so much one can do with flavorings that make inedible food much tastier, and often it is these bland foods that are most nutritious. So adding flavoring to them would have made them much easier to get down and helped the population survive and continue with good food resources.
Of course, this new diet did not save the Neanderthals; as we all know, they fell away into the annals of antiquity, leaving behind some bones, tools, and their DNA within us. But there is so much we can learn about them, and we gather new information about this species daily.
Knowing what they were doing with their food, we have a much more robust understanding of their daily lives, what they did, and why. Only new things will come going forward, but knowing this is how we will make further discoveries surrounding our ancient cousins and what we will learn next could change everything.
Join me on a LIVE Q/A session on Zoom where we will all talk about Paleoanthropology and related topics.
Get your questions answered, or find out where you can get the answers and learn all about the fascinating world of our deep human past!
Get your questions ready, and prepare to ask them on December 3rd, 11 AM PST, 2022!
It’s going to be a great event, and the more people participating and asking questions, the better! So please invite your friends and colleagues and let us have a great time!
Today on this episode of Skulls with Seth, we will discuss the first of the Homo genus. Homo habilis! This is an enigmatic species that has caused a great deal of controversy surrounding it but has found itself safely nestled as the first of our genus.
We will be examining the skull of KNM-ER 1813, looking at its features, and talking a little bit about the species.
If you have any questions or comments (aside from my shaky hands), please let me know!
I am tired of seeing certain things, and it was time I had a word on it.
Racial terms in Anthropology.
Anthropology has a long and unfortunate history of using improper, unfair, and at its worst, racist and inhumane terms to define and separate different populations.
Anthropology is a slow-moving animal, these terms are slowly dying out, but that does not stop someone from being in “the old guard.” and saying something inappropriate.
So what can we do?
We must remain indignant, informed, and up to date on what the current science actually tells us, what we feel is right, and what we know is not wrong. There are no morals in science. There is doing, and not doing. Truth and soon to be or future truth. Change the story.
These individuals should be corrected with the correct, updated scientific terminology thoughtfully.
If they continue to use the hurtful and wrong terminology, I fear you may have something more than just an old scientist in front of you, but someone who views things more racially. Please do not listen to what these people espouse. Too many of our problems today come from people listening to others wishing to cause harm.
There is a specific case in Forensic Anthropology where certain terms are used because the legal industry moves even slower. By law, certain groups of people must be categorized in specific ways. Still, these anthropologists recognize that there is no biological meaning in their designations. They are regional, geographical, and most definitely not racial.
Today we are joined by Prof. Marc Kissel, a Professor of Anthropology, who has honored us by joining us for this episode of The Story of Us!
*Premiering at 2PM PST!*
Learn about why science education is essential, what we are doing about it, and new ideas that are constantly popping up around the world of anthropology.
It’s almost impossible to keep up with everything that is going on in this field, but we do try! Learn how the area is progressing, what is going on, and why it is essential to be excited about science!
World of Paleoanthropology 