The house as a mind [version 1; peer review: 2 approved] by Clive Gamble

“…This paper goes beyond these approaches by considering the house as a metaphor for the structure of hominin minds. It is argued that the study of the mind in deep history requires, (1) a recognition that mind is distributed between bodies, brains, and the world. …”
Get full text

A Neanderthal/Denisovan GLI3 variant contributes to anatomical variations in mice by Ako Agata, Satoshi Ohtsuka, Ryota Noji, Hitoshi Gotoh, Katsuhiko Ono, Tadashi Nomura, Tadashi Nomura

“…Our data suggest that an extinct hominin-type GLI3 contributes to species-specific anatomical variations, which were tolerated by relaxed constraint in developmental programs during human evolution.…”
Get full text

Paleolithic occupation of arid Central Asia in the Middle Pleistocene. by Emma M Finestone, Paul S Breeze, Sebastian F M Breitenbach, Nick Drake, Laura Bergmann, Farhod Maksudov, Akmal Muhammadiyev, Pete Scott, Yanjun Cai, Arina M Khatsenovich, Evgeny P Rybin, Gernot Nehrke, Nicole Boivin, Michael Petraglia

“…Central Asia is positioned at a crossroads linking several zones important to hominin dispersal during the Middle Pleistocene. However, the scarcity of stratified and dated archaeological material and paleoclimate records makes it difficult to understand dispersal and occupation dynamics during this time period, especially in arid zones. …”
Get full text

Modelling Neanderthals’ dispersal routes from Caucasus towards east by Elham Ghasidian, Anooshe Kafash, Martin Kehl, Masoud Yousefi, Saman Heydari-Guran

“…This exceptional physio-geographic condition brings forward the Southern Caspian corridor as a potential place of admixture of different hominin species including Neanderthals and homo sapiens.…”
Get full text

Secular trends in cranial chord variables: a study of changes in sexual dimorphism of the North Indian population during 1954–2011 by Vineeta Saini

“…Previously cranial chord variables were examined only to deduce cranial abnormalities and hominin evolution. In forensic anthropological literature to date, no studies have examined the importance of cranial chord variables in sex determination and neither have secular changes been reported in those measurements to date. …”
Get full text

Landscaping the behavioural ecology of primate stone tool use by Almeida-Warren, K, Camara, HD, Matsuzawa, T, Carvalho, S

“…Our research indicates that the technological landscape of Bossou chimpanzees shares affinities with the ‘favoured places’ model of hominin site formation, providing a comparative framework for reconstructing landscape-scale patterns of ancient human behaviour. …”

Chronometric investigations of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in the Zagros Mountains using AMS radiocarbon dating and Bayesian age modelling by Becerra-Valdivia, L, Douka, K, Comeskey, D, Bazgir, B, Conard, N, Marean, C, Ollé, A, Otte, M, Tumung, L, Zeidi, M, Higham, T

“…The Zagros Mountains region assumes importance in discussions concerning this period as its geographic location is central to all pertinent hominin migration areas, pointing to both east and west. …”

Raw material procurement for termite fishing tools by wild chimpanzees in the Issa valley, Western Tanzania. by Almeida-Warren, K, Sommer, V, Piel, AK, Pascual-Garrido, A

“…Our results have implications for the reconstruction of early hominin behaviors, particularly with regard to the use of perishable tools, which remain archaeologically invisible. …”

Reconnaissance a new Palaeolithic site at Al-Huwaidy in Ha’il region, northwest Saudi Arabia by Ahmed Hamid Nassr, Mohammed al-Hajj, Ali Tueaiman, Ahmed Elhassan

“…It is located on one of the routes of early hominin dispersal across Arabia. The ongoing archaeological research made by the Paleodeserts and Disperse projects have recorded several Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic sites in such localities as Jubbah basin in the Nefud desert (Groucutt et al. 2021; Petraglia et al. 2015; 2019), yet large parts of the region are still unexplored. …”
Get full text

Migrating microbes: what pathogens can tell us about population movements and human evolution by Charlotte J. Houldcroft, Jean-Baptiste Ramond, Riaan F. Rifkin, Simon J. Underdown

“…Finally, we discuss the tantalising hints of hominin migration and interaction found in the genome of human herpes simplex virus 2. …”
Get full text

Twentieth-Century Paleoproteomics: Lessons from Venta Micena Fossils by Jesús M. Torres, Concepción Borja, Luis Gibert, Francesc Ribot, Enrique G. Olivares

“…In this article, we review the immunological analysis of the proteins extracted from VM-0 and other Venta Micena fossils assigned to hominins and to other mammals, and explain how these methods helped to determine the species specificity of these fossils and resolve paleontological controversies.…”
Get full text

Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene by Daniel A. Lauer, A. Michelle Lawing, Rachel A. Short, Fredrick K. Manthi, Johannes Müller, Jason J. Head, Jenny L. McGuire

“…However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined concurrently with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their implications for the ecological function of megafaunal communities remain uncertain. …”
Get full text

Manual restrictions on Palaeolithic technological behaviours by Alastair J.M. Key, Christopher J. Dunmore

“…The causes of technological innovation in the Palaeolithic archaeological record are central to understanding Plio-Pleistocene hominin behaviour and temporal trends in artefact variation. …”
Get full text

Late Quaternary sediments from Barakar-Damodar Basin, Eastern India include the 74 ka Toba ash and a 17 ka microlith toolkit by Sourav Mukhopadhyay, Biswajit Roy, Satish J. Sangode, Manoj K. Jaiswal, Samiran Dutta

“…Moreover, the discovery of the ash bed, the occurrence of in-situ Bovid species, and microlith assemblages in the Barakar-Damodar Valley add to our understanding of late Pleistocene depositional environments, hominin occupations, and possible local migration across eastern India during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) period.…”
Get full text

Stable carbon isotope and molar microwear variability of South African australopiths in relation to paleohabitats and taxonomy by Grine, FE, Lee-Thorp, J, Blumenthal, S, Sponheimer, M, Teaford, M, Ungar, PS, van der Merwe, NJ, Yang, D

“…Swartkrans Member 1 appears to have been somewhat more open than Swartkrans Member 2, and while this is not reflected in microwear textures, the hominin δ13C values from Member 2 tend toward the lower side of the Member 1 range. …”

Rapid partner switching may facilitate increased broadcast group size in dance compared with conversation groups by Robertson, C, Tarr, B, Kempnich, M, Dunbar, R

“…We conclude that the capacity for information transfer provided by language comes at a cost in terms of social bonding, and that dance may have played an important role in bonding large hominin social groups.…”

Seasonality and Oldowan behavioral variability in East Africa by Linares-Matás, GJ, Clark, J

“…The extent, nature, and temporality of early hominin food procurement strategies have been subject to extensive debate. …”

Stone tool transport by wild Burmese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea) by Haslam, M, Pascual-Garrido, A, Malaivijitnond, S, Gumert, M

“…Non-human primate transport behaviour also assists in framing evolutionary scenarios for the emergence of stone tool use in the hominin lineage. Here, we present thefirst study of directly observed stone tool transport in wild and unhabituated Burmese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea) in Thailand. …”

Archaeological evidence for two culture diverse Neanderthal populations in the North Caucasus and contacts between them by Ekaterina V. Doronicheva, Liubov V. Golovanova, Vladimir B. Doronichev, Redzhep N. Kurbanov

“…Archaeological record indicates that several culture diverse MP hominin populations inhabited the Caucasus, but the region complex population history during this period remains poorly understood. …”
Get full text

Low-frequency orbital variations controlled climatic and environmental cycles, amplitudes, and trends in northeast Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene by Rachel Lupien, Kevin Uno, Cassaundra Rose, Nicole deRoberts, Cole Hazan, Peter de Menocal, Pratigya Polissar

“…Long-term hydroclimate and environmental shifts provide new contexts for milestone events in northeast African hominin dispersal and evolution.…”
Get full text