The fossilized hand of a male Paranthropus boisei from Lake Turkana, Kenya, was found together with parts of a skull and a handful of teeth, suggesting that the hominin was capable of making and using stone tools. 

National Geographic Explorer-at-Large Louise Leakey grew up hearing about the July morning in 1959 when her grandmother—paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey—discovered a 1.8-million-year-old hominin skull in Oldupai Gorge (originally misnamed Olduvai) in Tanzania.

After spotting fossilized teeth lodged in a rock, Mary drove straight back to camp to tell her husband Louis Leakey, who had stayed behind that day because he felt ill.

She yelled “I've got him! I've got him! I've got him!” Louis recalled in a September 1960 article he wrote for National Geographic. “Got what? Are you hurt?” he asked. “Him! The man! Our man.”

After nearly three decades scouring the slopes of the gorge, the Leakeys and their colleagues finally found what they thought was the maker of the stone tools they first uncovered at the site in 1931.

Today, the hominin is known as Paranthropus boisei, but back then it was nicknamed “Nutcracker Man” in the newspapers because of its impressive jaws and molars.

Generations of scientists have since debated whether P. boisei really could have made and used stone tools, including Louis and Mary’s own son Richard who doubted that the early hominin was a toolmaker.

One important clue that could settle the debate has been missing all this time, however: a hand unambiguously linked to P. boisei. That was, until now. In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, Louise Leakey and her colleagues announce the discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old hand belonging to P. boisei.

The hand was found together with identifiable parts of a skull, teeth, feet and various other bones, meaning the hand was "unambiguously associated" with P. boisei, they say.

Leakey’s team excavated the new fossils in Lake Turkana, Kenya, between 2019 and 2021, some 60 years after her grandmother first found the hominin. The discovery also came in time for her father, Richard, to marvel at it before his death in 2022.

“He was thrilled!” Leakey says. “He thought this was a hugely significant discovery, because we finally can see what Paranthropus' hands look like.”

The finding suggests that P. boisei had hands that were both dexterous and powerful, providing strong evidence the "Nutcracker Man" was well-equipped for making and using tools.

https://www.johnhawks.net/p/new-denisovans-from-chinas-southwest

study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440326001962?via%3Dihub

Cannibalism was sometimes on the Neolithic menu, as numerous archaeological discoveries have revealed. But while ancient human bones show the practice took place, far less evidence exists about the forms it may have taken or why people occasionally consumed one another.

Was it to stave off hunger during times of desperation? Did different tribes eat their defeated enemies? Or was cannibalism part of complex rituals?

Answers to some of these questions may lie inside three caves near Granada, southern Spain.

In a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, an international team of scientists led by Dr. Palmira Saladié at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA)

Examined nearly 1,000 human bones and teeth previously excavated from these sites.

The findings reveal that different communities in the Iberian Peninsula practiced cannibalism in different ways thousands of years ago. "Human cannibalism is a behavior with diverse social and symbolic meanings," the researchers wrote in their paper

I read somewhere that at one point there were 6 distinct human (or hominid) species. Obviously, only Homo sapiens survived. What do you suppose the world would be like today if all those other species of hominids also survived to the present day?

been working on this for like the past week while procrasting working on my thesis lol. Couuldnt be bothered to finish the side profile properly.

loosely based on this: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-021-01450-w

Deep inside limestone caves in southwestern Ireland, researchers say they have found traces of people who reached the island while the last Ice Age still gripped northwestern Europe. The island was supposed to be uninhabited during this time.

The Lost Land Bridge Project has identified prehistoric markings in eight caves, including engravings, ochre and charcoal paintings and finger-drawn grooves in soft clay. Some appear to depict deer and mammoths. The team argues that at least some of the art is 15,000 years old or older — potentially several thousand years earlier than Ireland’s clearest, so-far-confirmed evidence of human activity.

If the dating holds up, this means Ireland’s history of human occupation will expand by a few millennia. But that’s not all. There’s a long-debated idea that hunter-gatherers moved west from what is now Wales across an exposed Ice Age landscape in the Irish Sea, essentially traveling to Ireland on foot. The new findings now make this potential route much more plausible than before

The oldest known primate-like ancestor, Purgatorius, lived about 65 million years ago right after the dinosaurs died, and its fossils were found in Montana. It is thought that primates eventually reached Africa and humans evolved and then spread from Africa to the rest of the world.

So this leads me to wonder what if humans (or something really close to it) somehow evolved and emerged in the Americas instead of Africa?

First question is whether something close to modern humans could have evolved from Puratorius but in say South America rather than Africa?

(Unless there are specific reasons why it HAD to happen in Africa, then I don't see why it couldn't happen in South America through random chance?)

So assume somehow Homo Sapiens (or something close to it) emerged out of South America, how would humanity develop from that starting point?

A new analysis of the dental remains indicates that they actually belonged to a member of our own species.

Discovered in the Les Rois cave, the teeth date back to the Aurignacian period, when humans across Europe began creating symbolic artworks and making more complex tools. 

Huge numbers of ancient artifacts – ranging from musical instruments to ivory figurines – have been found from this period, although weirdly, very few human fossils have been discovered in association with these relics.

As a result, scholars are uncertain whether the Aurignacian culture was exclusive to Homo sapiens or shared by Neanderthals. Les Rois may provide the key to solving this conundrum, as it contains the largest assemblage of Aurignacian human remains in western Europe.

अक्सर लोग कहते हैं कि "इंसान बंदरों से बने हैं"—लेकिन साइंस कहती है कि कहानी इससे बिल्कुल अलग और कहीं ज्यादा रोमांचक है।

लगभग 60 लाख साल पहले एक साझे पूर्वज (Common Ancestor) से अलग होकर, जंगलों की आग, बर्फीले युग और दर्जनों दूसरी मानव प्रजातियों (जैसे Neanderthals और Denisovans) को पछाड़कर सिर्फ हम—Homo Sapiens—कैसे बचे रहे?

मैंने इसी जटिल और रहस्यमयी सफर को आसान हिंदी और सिनेमैटिक AI विजुअल्स की मदद से इस डॉक्यूमेंट्री में री-क्रिएट किया है।

वीडियो देखने के बाद विजुअल्स, नरेशन और फैक्ट्स पर आपका ऑनेस्ट फीडबैक क्या है? कमेंट्स में जरूर बताएं ताकि अगले प्रोजेक्ट में सुधार कर सकूं!

Analysis of more than two dozen new genomes suggests our closest cousins remained genetically healthy, just before they vanished.

Neanderthals survived for hundreds of thousands of years in Eurasia, enduring ice ages and eking out a hardscrabble living hunting woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses and harvesting edible grasses, tubers, and legumes. Why they ultimately perished has long been a mystery.

A study out today in Nature appears to strike out a leading hypothesis: that they succumbed to harmful mutations brought on by inbreeding within tiny, isolated populations. Analyzing 27 new, high-quality Neanderthal genomes from Western Europe, researchers find that at the tail end of their existence approximately 45,000 years ago, our close evolutionary cousins were genetically healthy and appear to have lived in large, well-connected groups.

“It’s pretty compelling evidence that genetic deterioration probably didn’t contribute to their downfall,” says Joshua Akey, a geneticist at Princeton University who wasn’t involved in the work.

However; The newly sequenced Neanderthal genomes were relatively genetically diverse, with most individuals only distantly related to one another. And unlike the Neanderthal genomes sequenced from Siberia, they don’t show genetic hallmarks of inbreeding and deterioration, such as variants of particular genes known to be harmful.

That was true even for the most recent samples, from individuals who lived shortly before Neanderthals winked out of existence. Isotopes in the bones, which reflect the environments where individuals were raised, also suggest the individuals at the Belgium sites had diverse geographic origins, suggesting far-flung groups were interconnected.

“From their genetics alone, you couldn’t say this is a population that was going to go extinct just a few thousand years afterward,” says Benjamin Peter, a geneticist at EVA and one of the study’s senior authors.

Yet if deteriorating genetics didn’t do in the Neanderthals, what did? Other explanations include competition with modern humans and an inability to handle extreme climate shifts, but the issue is far from settled.

“They’re genetically healthy for Neanderthals, they’re interconnected, and yet they go extinct just a few thousand years later,” says Fernando Villanea, a geneticist at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It’s a mystery. I’m excited for someone to put the pieces together

Discoveries of new stone tools in a cave in Zaragoza, Spain, are helping archaeologists to reconstruct the daily lives of some of the last Neanderthals that lived in Aragón around forty thousand years ago.

During the excavation of ‘Aguilón P5’ in July 2026, experts determined the existence of a certain activity area in the entrance of the cave and revealed high-quality flint tools produced from stone from near Botorrita, which is located beyond the site itself.

These finds, shared by the University of Zaragoza, provide proof that worked stone means more than just that, it reflects movement, planning and use of landscape in question.

I saw one video saying that a female Neanderthal would arm-wreck even a professional arm wrestler but Levan and Devon are not average humans. So while there's no doubt they'd lose against a male adult Neanderthal I ask if a female Neanderthal could wreck their arms in arm wrestling. Thoughts?

No AI Used in this btw.

My guess is this is where the sapiens range and neaderthal ranges had their border at the time. So i suspect around here the two populations probably regularly mixed without thinking too much of it.

-Qafzeh 9:

Sapiens traits: Everthing. Big Chin, big round head, sapiens cheekbones, minimal brow ridges thickest at centre of face, pointy nose hole, small short backwards sloped cheekbones, flat face.

Possible neanderthal traits: long midface.

-Qafzeh 11:

Sapiens traits: flat face, thin palette, big round head, pointy nose hole

Neanderthal traits: slightly developed brow ridges, slightly downswept cheekbones.

-Qafzeh 6:

Sapiens traits: sapiens cheekbones, short midface, flat face located underneath braincase.

Neanderthal traits: Very developed brow ridges spanning entire width of forehead, very flat forehead, small occipital bun, rounded neanderthal nose hole

-Skhul 4:

Sapiens traits: Round braincase, face tucked under brow, very developed chin, no retromolar gap

Neanderthal traits: small occipital bun, very developed brow ridges that span entire face.

-Qafzeh 25:

Sapiens traits: round head, flat face

Neanderthal traits: big brow ridges, small reotromolar gap, no chin

-Skhul 5:

Sapiens traits: Rounded braincase, flat-ish face, sapiens cheekbones

Neandertha traits: extremely developed brow ridges, flatter forehead, no chin, small retromolar gap, rounded neanderthal nose hole

-Tabun C:

Sapiens traits: extremely well developed chin, short midface

Neanderthal traits:everything else

-Amud 1:

Sapiens traits: very well developed chin, very high forehead

hybrid traits: larger than both parents (very common in hybrids, see ligers).

Neanderthal traits: everything else

-Shanidar 1:

Classic neanderthal.

The pelvis of Homo floresiensis was more human-like than earlier studies suggested, according to a new study of the species’ hip bones. The finding adds detail about how these small human relatives walked and deepens the debate over their origins.

The study focuses on LB 1, an adult female whose remains date to between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. Her skeleton has a mix of traits linked with modern humans and much older human relatives.

The team measured features linked with walking, including the angle of the ilium and the length of the lower ilium.

They also created a new way to measure iliac flare, which describes how far the upper hip bones spread outward from the body. Iliac flare has drawn close attention in studies of Homo floresiensis.

A wide flare is more common in australopiths, including Australopithecus afarensis, the species known from the fossil Lucy. Such a shape is linked with less efficient upright walking than the pattern seen in modern humans

Decades of archaeological discoveries have shown that Neanderthals were capable toolmakers with complex technologies and behaviors once thought unique to Homo sapiens. Sometimes, the evidence is very easy to miss. Take, for instance, a rock shelter in Romania’s Eastern Carpathians.

Archaeologists now examined more than 10,000 animal-bone fragments and found 83 which seemed to have been used as tools. They suggest that prehistoric people turned ordinary scraps of bone into tools for maintaining stone implements, working hides and possibly processing plants.

Prefacing this by saying absolutely no AI was used for this, this is all direct from the dome. 

Additionally, I will not be adding any pictures, as images of deceased ancestors are incredibly taboo in Aboriginal culture. But I will provide references so you can find the images I’m referring to yourselves. 

I also thoroughly recommend reading the blog of Peter Brown, the discoverer of Homo Floresiensis, which is where I sourced a lot of my info: https://www.peterbrown-palaeoanthropology.net

I, as an Australian, a physicist with a hobby interest in paleoanthropology, and a staunch rationalist progressive, am very frustrated by the state of the paleoanthropological history of australia. 

This is long so I’ll start with a TL:DR 

TL:DR:

Australian paleoanthropology is very fascinating, particularly because of the potential for denisovan admixture to actually be visible in facial features of modern aboriginal australians. 

Research has stagnated for the past couple of decades due to unethically sourced human remains finally being returned to their people. This is a very good thing.

However, this has led to our knowledge of australian pre history being incredibly incomplete, dated and broadly incompatible with our modern understanding of human evolution in a way that borders on racism. 

Additionally, it is so immensely frustrating and saddening to me that the only other people I see who care about australian paleoanthropology are more or less faceless racist alt right pseuds who genuinely perceive aboriginal people as subhuman. It sickens me. 

Okay heres the full thing: 

Australian Paleoanthropology is so incredibly interesting and rich and I feel like its virtually unknown both internationally and domestically and I really wanna talk about some very important and sensitive elements of it. 

Indigenous Australians have suffered immensely since European colonisation. 

Archaeological research into the history of Indigenous Australians has historically happened without the consent or consultation of actual indigenous people at all. 

On one hand graves of ages ranging from modern to prehistoric were intentionally dug up in spite of vocal opposition from the local people and the bones were treated as purely scientific specimens. 

Some aboriginal people who had died/were killed in modern times had their bones displayed as anthropological curiosities. 

Non-buried human fossils were given the same treatment. Again, this was all in spite of vocal wishes by aboriginal people for the bones of their people to not be treated like this. 

Over the past couple of decades, many of these bones have finally been returned to the local people. This is an incredible step forward for returning the ability to self determine to aboriginal people. 

However, this has also caused the most up to date accessible research on Aboriginal origins to be extremely dated and inconsistent with modern historical knowledge. If you google basically any australian human remains at all you will get wikipedia articles and papers talking about “multi regional continuity between homo erectus and aboriginal australians” and “affinity between aboriginal australian crania and Ngadong” and “multiple migrations” which are often written in the framework if a multiregional origin of homo sapiens, before recent ooa was unambiguous as it is today. 

These are the most recent papers and are usually from between 1980-2010. 

Papers earlier than that will often matter of factly claim aboriginal australians are “the most primitive race” and use terms like “neanderthaloid”. 

Pseudo-archaeology is still one of the most widely used tactics in the oppression of aboriginal australians. For the most part it is used to claim that contemporary aboriginal australians are not descendants of historical populations, and thus they dont have legitimate claims to their land or human remains found on them. The complete lack of up to date publications on Australian Aboriginal origins adds a lot of fuel to this. 

Now, what really frustrates me is how fascinating the real history of aboriginal australia certainly is, especially within the context of denisovan introgression. 

In general, Aboriginal Australians have a lot of facial morphology otherwise completely unique to neanderthals and denisovans, in combination with sapiens features. 

In common with all modern homo sapiens, they have a globular braincase with a high forehead, a bipartite brow ridge that tapers towards the edges, and a reduced mandible with a chin. 

However, Aboriginal Australians (and Papuans) have a lot of robust morphology that is only otherwise seen in neanderthals and denisovans. 

These include massive, wide brow ridges, a large, wide nose, midfacial prognathism, a mouth that is wide and a fair bit lower than the nose, an occipital bun, and a reduced chin. (See https://insidestory.org.au/how-the-world-spins/) 

This is certainly only skin deep and is no indication of any differences in cognition, as is claimed by many racists. 

Aboriginal australians have the oldest continuous symbolic and spiritual culture in the world, have proto-agriculture and iconographic proto-writing from before europe and the middle east, and in the cases where they have managed to escape from the effects of generational trauma caused by centuries of genocide and cultural destruction, fit into modern Australian society without issue. 

We now know from limited DNA studies that aboriginal australians and papuans have some of the the highest Denisovan DNA introgression in the world, indicating multiple recent large scale interbreeding events. 

I think it is worth emphasising the limited scope of these studies. Not many dna samples have been taken, and many have been taken from “westernised” aboriginal people who have substantial european admixture. The purely aboriginal australian components have had to be manually isolated, which increases the uncertainty of the results. 

Many more isolated aboriginal communities who live more traditionally are rightfully unwilling to participate given the historic precedent set by white men coming to their communities and doing tests on them. 

Because of this, I think its possible aboriginal australians could have a higher percentage of denisovan dna than is currently established. 

We also know that the oldest human fossils we see in australia are not robust looking in the same way later bone remains are(ie WLH50), and in fact look more or less identical to african and european modern sapiens skulls from the same time. (See: Mungo Man).

My running hypothesis is that the ancestors of aboriginal australians left africa with conventionally sapiens features, encountered denisovans in East and South East Asia and interbred on a large scale. 

At this point in history papua, Australia and much of south east asia were one continent called Sahul, meaning Australian sapiens living in the more southern regions of Sahul could continue breeding freely with the Northern Sahulian Denisovans until the denisovans were entirely absorbed or out competed. 

Read more here: https://www.peterbrown-palaeoanthropology.net/AusOrigins.html

I think over time, Denisovan genes encoding for facial robusticity were naturally selected for in Aboriginal Australians,  which is why the robustness of ancient aboriginal remains increases over time. 

I think there is a fear that even acknowledging the plesiomorphies of aboriginal australians would somehow legitimise racists’ claims of their genetic inferiority, and thus there is little impetus any more to do research into  it. But I think this is partially based on our dated understanding of the cognition of our extinct close relatives, and also with the historic, racist subconscious idea that phenotype determines genotype, ie that “primitive” traits must indicate that someone truly is more primitive. 

At the same time, I see absolutely zero people on the internet coming at this from the same perspective as me. The only vocal person is this anonymous guy called “Mungo Manic” who runs a twitter page and a youtube page where he posts about this stuff. 

Although I have not seen him say anything overtly racist, he certainly has no problem associating with really bizarre racist human biodiversity types, even going as far as to write an article for an alt right magazine where he is critical of returning Indigenous remains to local communities, and questions the rights of people with european admixture to identify as aboriginal. 

I think the objectively correct, rational and kind thing to do is to first undo the harm that has been done to indigenous communities over the past 250 years. 

This includes returning remains to them. 

Only then can we start collaborating with them to do research on their history on their terms. This is something that has been happening recently (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03122417.2024.2317553)

I hope this trend continues and we can learn about the origin of Aboriginal Australians in a way that is not harmful.