Modern Genetics and Ancient Humans

Yet again, a new study seems to have found evidence of the interbreeding of ancient human populations.

Old Fire

Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

Thanks to Molly for the initial heads up on this.  News in the archaeological world is all about a site in South Africa that seems to show convincing evidence for the use of fire by about one million years ago.  This is about 300,000 years earlier than we had discussed in the archaeology class.  As the linked article describes, the antiquity of the use of fire illustrates even more the long history of biological and cultural change that has characterized the story of our species.

Human Ancestries: The Place of Neandertals and Denisovans

Today's lecture covered an important and newly developing picture of human history. As noted, humans seem to have always interbred with neighboring groups and there never seem to have been distinct biological "races" as they have been understood in the last couple centuries of American history. For any of those interested, here's a couple of blog posts that influenced my coverage in class today (Living Anthropologically's Admixture All the Way Down and Torso and Oblong's Talking About Ancient and Modern Peoples).

On a related note, since we're talking about breeding between different populations, I wanted to remind you what anthropologists believe that Neandertals looked like.  Not like an ape or other kind of bestial monstrosity, but a lot like you and me.