John Hawks

@johnhawks

I'm a paleoanthropologist. I explore human fossils and genomes to understand where we came from and what we share with our ancestors.

Wisconsin

johnhawks.net

Replies Reposts Media

John Hawks
@johnhawks
Aug 31
Dunbar’s number is one of those concepts that is just further entrenched by every demonstration that it’s not true. The final boss of 1990s pop science myths.
Chris Stringer
@ChrisStringer65
Aug 28
The famous limit of 150 friends a human brain can supposedly hold turns out to rest on a calculation too wide to support any specific number, let alone the one everyone quotes siliconcanals.com/n-the-famous-l…
2
John Hawks
@johnhawks
Aug 25
“In broad strokes, it appears that the modern human population evolved from a merger of two ancient groups around 300,000 years ago, roughly 80% from one, and 20% from the other.” Who were these stem populations? Here is some informed speculation.
Modern humans evolved from an 80-20 mixture of two deep streams
From johnhawks.net
32
John Hawks
@johnhawks
Aug 9
Two new Denisovan fossils have emerged from the seafloor of the Penghu Strait, near Taiwan. I look at what these tell us about the survival of Denisovans into the time frame of the “classic” Neanderthals.
Legs of the last Denisovans
From johnhawks.net
6
John Hawks
@johnhawks
Aug 6
“An average effect size of 285 grams per copy means that around 200,000 metric tons of human muscle can be attributed to this Neanderthal inheritance. That’s two aircraft carriers worth of mass.”
johnhawks.net
How Neanderthal ancestry affects growth and muscle
Study of a Neanderthal-derived haplotype of GHR show effects on height and lean body mass
1
John Hawks
@johnhawks
Aug 2
The story of “The petite bodies of the robust australopithecines” is changing in light of the last 15 years of evidence, and footprints are leading the way.
The big feet of Paranthropus boisei
From johnhawks.net
4