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The cuckoldry conundrum Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Brooke A. Scelza
Concerns about cuckoldry are a dominant theme in evolutionary studies of mating, frequently used to explain sex differences in reproductive strategies. However, studies in nonhuman species have shown that cuckoldry can be associated with important benefits. These insights have not been well integrated with the human literature, which continues to focus on anticuckoldry tactics and negative repercussions
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Cover Image Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Catherine K. Miller, Jeremy M. DeSilva
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Early anthropoid primates: New data and new questions Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Yaowalak Chaimanee, Olivier Chavasseau, Vincent Lazzari, Aung N. Soe, Chit Sein, Jean-Jacques Jaeger
Although the evolutionary history of anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) appears relatively well-documented, there is limited data available regarding their origins and early evolution. We review and discuss here the earliest records of anthropoid primates from Asia, Africa, and South America. New fossils provide strong support for the Asian origin of anthropoid primates. However, the earliest
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Exploration and assessment of an introduction to primates Alfred L. Rosenberger Primates: An Introduction London and New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978103289918 Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Rose M. Hores
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Biomechanics in anthropology Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Michael Berthaume, Sarah Elton
Biomechanics is the set of tools that explain organismal movement and mechanical behavior and links the organism to the physicality of the world. As such, biomechanics can relate behaviors and culture to the physicality of the organism. Scale is critical to biomechanical analyses, as the constitutive equations that matter differ depending on the scale of the question. Within anthropology, biomechanics
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A lineage perspective on hominin taxonomy and evolution Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Jesse M. Martin, A. B. Leece, Stephanie E. Baker, Andy I. R. Herries, David S. Strait
An uncritical reliance on the phylogenetic species concept has led paleoanthropologists to become increasingly typological in their delimitation of new species in the hominin fossil record. As a practical matter, this approach identifies species as diagnosably distinct groups of fossils that share a unique suite of morphological characters but, ontologically, a species is a metapopulation lineage segment
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Child and adolescent foraging: New directions in evolutionary research Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2024-01-12 Ilaria Pretelli, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Edmond Dounias, Sagan Friant, Jeremy Koster, Karen L. Kramer, Shani M. Mangola, Almudena Mari Saez, Sheina Lew-Levy
Young children and adolescents in subsistence societies forage for a wide range of resources. They often target child-specific foods, they can be very successful foragers, and they share their produce widely within and outside of their nuclear family. At the same time, while foraging, they face risky situations and are exposed to diseases that can influence their immune development. However, children's
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Human behaviors driving disease emergence Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Sagan Friant
Interactions between humans, animals, and the environment facilitate zoonotic spillover—the transmission of pathogens from animals to humans. Narratives that cast modern humans as exogenous and disruptive forces that encroach upon “natural” disease systems limit our understanding of human drivers of disease. This review leverages theory from evolutionary anthropology that situates humans as functional
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Male-philopatric nonhuman primates and their potential role in understanding the evolution of human sociality Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Krista M. Milich
In most primate species, males transfer out of their natal groups, resulting in groups of unrelated males. However, in a few species, including humans, males remain in their groups and form life-long associations with each other. This pattern of male philopatry is linked with cooperative male behaviors, including border patrols and predator defense. Because females in male-philopatric species form
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Developing evolutionary anthropology in local ecosystems Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Rachel E. Palkovitz, Richard R. Lawler
The traditional regional focus of evolutionary anthropology—typically defined as places where hominin fossils, nonhuman primates, and non-western populations reside—forms the basis of much evolutionary anthropological research. Using the highly biodiverse temperate region of Appalachia as an example, we suggest that evolutionary anthropologists have much to gain by stepping outside of this traditional
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In the light of evolution: Contemporary applications of evolutionary thought Norman A. Johnson Darwin's Reach: 21st Century Application of Evolutionary Biology(2022) Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. 430pp. $59.95. ISBN: 9780429503962 Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Sofiya Shreyer
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflicts of interest.
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A review of the distal femur in Australopithecus Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Catherine K. Miller, Jeremy M. DeSilva
In 1938, the first distal femur of a fossil Australopithecus was discovered at Sterkfontein, South Africa. A decade later, another distal femur was discovered at the same locality. These two fossil femora were the subject of a foundational paper authored by Kingsbury Heiple and Owen Lovejoy in 1971. In this paper, the authors discussed functionally relevant anatomies of these two fossil femora and
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Punctuated equilibrium at 50: Anything there for evolutionary anthropology? Yes; definitely Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Michael J. O'Brien, Sergi Valverde, Salva Duran-Nebreda, Blai Vidiella, R. Alexander Bentley
The theory of punctuated equilibrium (PE) was developed a little over 50 years ago to explain long-term, large-scale appearance and disappearance of species in the fossil record. A theory designed specifically for that purpose cannot be expected, out of the box, to be directly applicable to biocultural evolution, but in revised form, PE offers a promising approach to incorporating not only a wealth
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Moving away from "the Muddle in the Middle" toward solving the Chibanian puzzle. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Christopher J Bae,Leslie C Aiello,John Hawks,Yousuke Kaifu,Joshua Lindal,María Martinón-Torres,Xijun Ni,Cosimo Posth,Predrag Radović,Denne Reed,Lauren Schroeder,Jeffrey H Schwartz,Mary T Silcox,Frido Welker,Xiu-Jie Wu,Clément Zanolli,Mirjana Roksandic
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Evolutionary medicine approaches to chronic disease: The case of irritable bowel syndrome Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-11-01 Makenna B. Lenover, Mary K. Shenk
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a gastrointestinal disease, is a global phenomenon correlated with industrialization. We propose that an evolutionary medicine approach is useful to understand this disease from an ultimate perspective and conducted a scoping literature review to synthesize the IBS literature within this framework. Our review suggests five potential evolutionary hypotheses for the cause
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Homo heterogenus: Variability in early Pleistocene Homo environments Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Tegan I. F. Foister, Indrė Žliobaitė, Oscar E. Wilson, Mikael Fortelius, Miikka Tallavaara
To understand the ecological dominance of Homo sapiens, we need to investigate the origins of the plasticity that has enabled our colonization of the planet. We can approach this by exploring the variability of habitats to which different hominin populations have adapted over time. In this article, we draw upon and synthesize the current research on habitats of genus Homo during the early Pleistocene
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The use of chimpanzee-modified faunal assemblages to investigate early hominin carnivory Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Alex Bertacchi, David P. Watts
Chimpanzees regularly hunt and consume prey smaller than themselves. It seems therefore likely that early hominins also consumed small vertebrate meat before they started using and producing stone tools. Research has focused on cut marks and large ungulates, but there is a small body of work that has investigated the range of bone modifications produced on small prey by chimpanzee mastication that
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The wrong ape for early human origins: A skewed view of paleoanthropology and evolutionary theory M. Kay Martin The wrong ape for early human origins: The chimpanzee as a skewed ancestral model Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN: 9781666923872. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Scott A. Williams
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Specimens as individuals: Four interventions and recommendations for great ape skeletal collections research and curation Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Alexandra E. Kralick, Stephanie L. Canington, Andrea R. Eller, Kate McGrath
Extensive discourse surrounds the ethics of human skeletal research and curation, but there has yet to be a similar discussion of the treatment of great ape skeletal remains, despite the clear interest in their ethical treatment when alive. Here we trace the history of apes who were killed and collected for natural history museums during the early 20th century and showcase how the guiding research
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Revisiting geophagy: An evolved sickness behavior to microbiome-mediated gastrointestinal inflammation Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-09-03 Achsah F. Dorsey, Elizabeth M. Miller
Geophagy, the consumption of clay or similar substances, is known as an evolved behavior that protects vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and children, against gastrointestinal injury. However, perplexing questions remain, like the presence of geophagy in the absence of overt gastrointestinal infection and the potential causal relationship between geophagy and iron deficiency anemia. In
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Beyond sex, gender, and other dilemmas: Human pelvic morphology from an integrative context Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Cara Wall-Scheffler, Helen Kurki
Recent research on the pelvis has clarified the flexibility of pelvic bones to manage nearly infinite possibilities in terms of selection and drift, while still maintaining excellent bipedalism. Despite this work, and the studies outlining the diversity of pelvic morphology across the hominin lineage, conversations continue to be stymied by distractions related to purported trade-offs that the different
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Selection and adaptation in human migration Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Adrian Viliami Bell
This article reviews the ways migration shapes human biology. This includes the physiological and genetic, but also socio-cultural aspects such as organization, behavior, and culture. Across disciplines I highlight the multiple levels of cultural and genetic selection whereby individuals and groups adapt to pressures along a migration timeline: the origin, transit, and destination. Generally, the evidence
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Hierarchies in the energy budget: Thyroid hormones and the evolution of human life history patterns Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-08-16 Stephanie B. Levy, Richard G. Bribiescas
The evolution of human life history characteristics required dramatic shifts in energy allocation mechanisms compared with our primate ancestors. Thyroid hormones, such as thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), are sensitive to energy balance, and are significant determinants for both tissue-specific and whole-body metabolic rate. Thus, thyroid hormones are in part responsible for setting the body's
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The multifactor pelvis: An alternative to the adaptationist approach of the obstetrical dilemma Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Anna Warrener
The obstetrical dilemma describes the competing demands that a bipedally adapted pelvis and a large-brained neonate place on human childbirth and is the predominant model within which hypotheses about the evolution of the pelvis are framed. I argue the obstetrical dilemma follows the adaptationist program outlined by Gould and Lewontin in 1979 and should be replaced with a new model, the multifactor
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Beyond the image: Interdisciplinary and contextual approaches to understanding symbolic cognition in Paleolithic parietal art. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-28 Isobel Wisher,Murillo Pagnotta,Eduardo Palacio-Pérez,Riccardo Fusaroli,Diego Garate,Derek Hodgson,John Matthews,Larissa Mendoza-Straffon,Blanca Ochoa,Felix Riede,Kristian Tylén
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Addressing the growing fossil record of subadult hominins by reaching across disciplines Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Debra R. Bolter, Noel Cameron, John Hawks, Steven E. Churchill, Lee Berger, Robin Bernstein, Julia C. Boughner, Sarah Elton, A. B. Leece, Patrick Mahoney, Keneiloe Molopyane, Tesla A. Monson, Jill Pruetz, Lawrence Schell, Kyra E. Stull, Christopher A. Wolfe
The field of paleoanthropology lacks a coherent methodology to study ontogeny in extinct hominins. During the past two decades in this field, several factors have served as an impetus to better define this subfield of study within human evolution. First is the increased recovery of immature hominin remains that span multiple genera—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo.
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A tooth crown morphology framework for interpreting the diversity of primate dentitions Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-24 Simon A. Chapple, Matthew M. Skinner
Variation in tooth crown morphology plays a crucial role in species diagnoses, phylogenetic inference, and the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of the primate clade. While a growing number of studies have identified developmental mechanisms linked to tooth size and cusp patterning in mammalian crown morphology, it is unclear (1) to what degree these are applicable across primates and (2)
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Deconstructing Eurocentrism in skin pigmentation research via the incorporation of diverse populations and theoretical perspectives Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-14 Yemko Pryor, John Lindo
The evolution of skin pigmentation has been shaped by numerous biological and cultural shifts throughout human history. Vitamin D is considered a driver of depigmentation evolution in humans, given the deleterious health effects associated with vitamin D deficiency, which is often shaped by cultural factors. New advancements in genomics and epigenomics have opened the door to a deeper exploration of
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Hunter-gatherer diets and activity as a model for health promotion: Challenges, responses, and confirmations Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-07 Melvin Konner, S. Boyd Eaton
Beginning in 1985, we and others presented estimates of hunter-gatherer (and ultimately ancestral) diet and physical activity, hoping to provide a model for health promotion. The Hunter-Gatherer Model was designed to offset the apparent mismatch between our genes and the current Western-type lifestyle, a mismatch that arguably affects prevalence of many chronic degenerative diseases. The effort has
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William L. Jungers, a gentle giant in Madagascar. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-07-01 Laurie R Godfrey,David A Burney
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The estimation and evolution of hominin body mass Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Christopher B. Ruff, Bernard A. Wood
Body mass is a critical variable in many hominin evolutionary studies, with implications for reconstructing relative brain size, diet, locomotion, subsistence strategy, and social organization. We review methods that have been proposed for estimating body mass from true and trace fossils, consider their applicability in different contexts, and the appropriateness of different modern reference samples
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Male–male relationships in chimpanzees and the evolution of human pair bonds Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-06-03 Aaron A. Sandel
The evolution of monogamy has been a central question in biological anthropology. An important avenue of research has been comparisons across “socially monogamous” mammals, but such comparisons are inappropriate for understanding human behavior because humans are not “pair living” and are only sometimes “monogamous.” It is the “pair bond” between reproductive partners that is characteristic of humans
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Amazonian Monkeys and Kafka's Ape at the German Primate Center Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Bernardo Urbani, Gabriel Robinson-González
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Mental health and well-being in primatology: Breaking the taboos Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Joanna M. Setchell, Steve Unwin, Susan M. Cheyne
We hope to raise awareness of mental health and well-being among primatologists. With this aim in mind, we organized a workshop on mental health as part of the main program of the Winter meeting of the Primate Society of Great Britain in December 2021. The workshop was very well received. Here, we review the main issues raised in the workshop, and supplement them with our own observations, reflections
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Benchmarking methods and data for the whole-outline geometric morphometric analysis of lithic tools Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-05-04 Renata P. Araujo, Felix Riede, Mercedes Okumura, Astolfo G. M. Araujo, Alice Leplongeon, Colin Wren, José R. Rabuñal, Marcelo Cardillo, María B. Cruz, David N. Matzig
1 INTRODUCTION Originally developed for the quantitative analysis of organismal shapes, both two-dimensional (2D) and 3D geometric morphometric methods (GMMs) have recently gained some prominence in archaeology for the analysis of stone tools1-3—unquestionably the primary deep-time data source for the earliest periods of human cultural evolution.4 The key strength of GMM rests in its ability to statistically
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Primatology at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-30 Chris Claypool
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Human consumption of large herbivore digesta and its implications for foraging theory Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Raven Garvey
Vegetal matter undergoing digestion in herbivores' stomachs and intestines, digesta, can be an important source of dietary carbohydrates for human foragers. Digesta significantly increases large herbivores' total caloric yield and broadens their nutritional profile to include three key macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) in amounts sufficient to sustain small foraging groups for multiple
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Not just in the past: Racist and sexist biases still permeate biology, anthropology, medicine, and education Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-04-04 Rui Diogo, Adeyemi Adesomo, Kimberly S. Farmer, Rachel J. Kim, Fatimah Jackson
In the past decades, it has been increasingly recognized that some areas of science, such as anthropology, have been plagued by racist, Western-centric, and/or sexist biases. Unfortunately, an acculturation process to racism and sexism has been occurring for generations leading to systemic inequities that will take a long time to disappear. Here, we highlight the existence of current examples of racism
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A sensitive and open-mind genetic perspective on the origin and history of Native Americans Jennifer Raff Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas(2022) New York, USA: Twelve, Hachette Book Group. ISBN 978-1-53874-971-5, $30.00. Hardcover. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Lumila Paula Menéndez
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The author declares no conflict of interest.
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The eighth annual Northeastern Evolutionary Primatologists (NEEP) meeting. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Thomas C Wilson
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The Australopithecus assemblage from Sterkfontein Member 4 (South Africa) and the concept of variation in palaeontology Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 Amélie Beaudet
Interpreting morphological variation within the early hominin fossil record is particularly challenging. Apart from the fact that there is no absolute threshold for defining species boundaries in palaeontology, the degree of variation related to sexual dimorphism, temporal depth, geographic variation or ontogeny is difficult to appreciate in a fossil taxon mainly represented by fragmentary specimens
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The sensory ecology of primate food perception, revisited Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Carrie C. Veilleux, Nathaniel J. Dominy, Amanda D. Melin
Twenty years ago, Dominy and colleagues published “The sensory ecology of primate food perception,” an impactful review that brought new perspectives to understanding primate foraging adaptations. Their review synthesized information on primate senses and explored how senses informed feeding behavior. Research on primate sensory ecology has seen explosive growth in the last two decades. Here, we revisit
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Kamoya Kimeu (c.1939-2022): Fossil finder and field-worker extraordinaire. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-12-11 Bernard Wood
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Judith Masters 1955-2022 and Fabien Génin 1971-2022. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-11-30 Massimiliano Delpero,Ian Tattersall
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Biocultural perspectives of infectious diseases and demographic evolution: Tuberculosis and its comorbidities through history Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-11-27 Taylor P. van Doren
Anthropologists recognize the importance of conceptualizing health in the context of the mutually evolving nature of biology and culture through the biocultural approach, but biocultural anthropological perspectives of infectious diseases and their impacts on humans (and vice versa) through time are relatively underrepresented. Tuberculosis (TB) has been a constant companion of humans for thousands
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Hominins likely occupied northern Europe before one million years ago Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Alastair Key, Nick Ashton
Our understanding of when hominins first reached northern Europe is dependent on a fragmented archaeological and fossil record known from as early as marine isotope stage (MIS) 21 or 25 (c. 840 or 950 thousand years ago [Ka]). This contrasts sharply with southern Europe, where hominin occupation is evidenced from MIS 37 to 45 (c. 1.22 or 1.39 million years ago [Ma]). Northern Europe, however, exhibits
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Inferring cultural reproduction from lithic data: A critical review Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Cheng Liu, Dietrich Stout
The cultural reproduction of lithic technology, long an implicit assumption of archaeological theories, has garnered increasing attention over the past decades. Major debates ranging from the origins of the human culture capacity to the interpretation of spatiotemporal patterning now make explicit reference to social learning mechanisms and cultural evolutionary dynamics. This burgeoning literature
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Fossil footprints and what they mean for hominin paleobiology Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Kevin G. Hatala, Neil T. Roach, Anna K. Behrensmeyer
Hominin footprints have not traditionally played prominent roles in paleoanthropological studies, aside from the famous 3.66 Ma footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania in the late 1970s. This contrasts with the importance of trace fossils (ichnology) in the broader field of paleontology. Lack of attention to hominin footprints can probably be explained by perceptions that these are exceptionally
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Reticulate evolution underlies synergistic trait formation in human communities Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Nathalie Gontier, Anton Sukhoverkhov
This paper investigates how reticulate evolution contributes to a better understanding of human sociocultural evolution in general, and community formation in particular. Reticulate evolution is evolution as it occurs by means of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity, and hybridization. From these mechanisms and processes, we mainly zoom in on symbiosis and we investigate
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Will celebrating complexity get us where we need to go? Agustín Fuentes Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths About Human Nature 2nd Edition, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN: 978-0-520-37960-2 Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-27 Charles C. Roseman
CONFLICT OF INTEREST The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Subjective selection and the evolution of complex culture Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-27 Manvir Singh
Why is culture the way it is? Here I argue that a major force shaping culture is subjective (cultural) selection, or the selective retention of cultural variants that people subjectively perceive as satisfying their goals. I show that people evaluate behaviors and beliefs according to how useful they are, especially for achieving goals. As they adopt and pass on those variants that seem best, they
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The nature of Nubian: Developing current global perspectives on Nubian Levallois technology and the Nubian complex Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Emily Hallinan, Omry Barzilai, Amir Beshkani, João Cascalheira, Yuri E. Demidenko, Mae Goder-Goldberger, Yamandú H. Hilbert, Erella Hovers, Anthony E. Marks, Andreas Nymark, Deborah I. Olszewski, Maya Oron, Jeffrey I. Rose, Matthew Shaw, Vitaly I. Usik
CONFLICT OF INTEREST The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Primatology and evolutionary anthropology at the 91st meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-04 Natalia T Grube,Christian M Gagnon,Melissa A Zarate
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Parallel evolution in human populations: A biocultural perspective Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-09-04 Christina M. Balentine, Deborah A. Bolnick
Parallel evolution—where different populations evolve similar traits in response to similar environments—has been a topic of growing interest to biologists and biological anthropologists for decades. Parallel evolution occurs in human populations thanks to myriad biological and cultural mechanisms that permit humans to survive and thrive in diverse environments worldwide. Because humans shape and are
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Homo bodoensis and why it matters Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-08-04 Mirjana Roksandic, Predrag Radović, Xiu-Jie Wu, Christopher J. Bae
In our original paper, we proposed a new species, Homo bodoensis, to replace the problematical taxa Homo heidelbergensis and Homo rhodesiensis, with the goal of streamlining communication about human evolution in the Chibanian. We received two independent responses. Given their substantial overlap, we provide one combined reply. In this response: (1) we are encouraged that the primary proposal in our
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The propensity of the human species to integrate a purpose into existence and achievements Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-07-18 Geoffrey Guinard
CONFLICT OF INTEREST The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Pan-Africanism vs. single-origin of Homo sapiens: Putting the debate in the light of evolutionary biology Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-07-18 Andra Meneganzin, Telmo Pievani, Giorgio Manzi
The scenario of Homo sapiens origin/s within Africa has become increasingly complex, with a pan-African perspective currently challenging the long-established single-origin hypothesis. In this paper, we review the lines of evidence employed in support of each model, highlighting inferential limitations and possible terminological misunderstandings. We argue that the metapopulation scenario envisaged
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The naming of Homo bodoensis by Roksandic and colleagues does not resolve issues surrounding Middle Pleistocene human evolution Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Eric Delson, Chris Stringer
Roksandic et al. (2022) proposed the new species name Homo bodoensis as a replacement name for Homo rhodesiensis Woodward, 1921, because they felt it was poorly and variably defined and was linked to sociopolitical baggage. However, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature includes regulations on how and when such name changes are allowed, and Roksandic et al.'s arguments meet none of these
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A process-based approach to hominin taxonomy provides new perspectives on hominin speciation Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Laura A. van Holstein, Robert A. Foley
A longstanding debate in hominin taxonomy is that between “lumpers” and “splitters.” We argue that both approaches assume an unrealistically static model of speciation. Speciation is an extended process, of which fossils provide a record. Fossils should be interpreted in a more dynamic framework than is the norm. We introduce the process-based approach (PBA), in which we suggest that “splitters” recognize
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Muddying the muddle in the middle even more Evolutionary Anthropology (IF 4.766) Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Esteban E. Sarmiento, Martin Pickford
In an Evolutionary Anthropology article Roksandic et al. (2022) propose a new middle Pleistocene hominin species H. bodoensis to replace a “poorly defined” Homo heidelbergenis. Homo bodoensis extends from the African Middle Pleistocene through the Levant to South-eastern Europe with all currently classified H. heidelbergensis fossils from western Europe subsumed into Homo neandertalensis. The authors