Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · 13d

@savannarhianna.bsky.social amazing work!

Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Marta Mirazon Lahr @martamlahr.bsky.social · 13d

#ESHE2025
Rhianna Drummond-Clarke ‘First documentation and quantification of wild chimpanzee rock climbing’
Camera traps, Issa Valley TZ & Moyen Bafing, Guinea chimps

Rock vs tree climbing: more dynamic movements, biomech diff locomotor modes, reaching further- role of uneven substrates!
Amazing 😍

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Helen Fewlass @helenfewlass.bsky.social · Sep 5

Very excited to receive an ERC Starting Grant to study the earliest archaeological and biomolecular evidence of Homo sapiens in NW Europe

Watch this space for new positions in Bristol in 2026! 🎉

#HorizonEurope #ERCStG

European Research Council (ERC) @erc.europa.eu · Sep 4

📣 The ERC Starting Grant call results are out!

Find out which early-career researchers will receive funding this year, what they will be investigating, where they will be based... plus lots of other #ERCStG facts & figures for 2025!

➡️ buff.ly/IsafuFh

#FrontierResearch 🇪🇺#EUfunded #HorizonEurope

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Amanda G. Henry @phytolith.bsky.social · May 10

I am offering two 4-year PhD positions (fully funded) and a 57 month combined post-doc / project manager position as part of my NWO-Vici grant, which starts in September.

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

MPI-EVA Leipzig @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social · Apr 4

Behavioural diversity in animals threatened by #biodiversity decline. In @science.org, @ammiekalan.bsky.social @uvic.ca & Lydia Luncz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social emphasise the urgent need to develop strategies for preserving animal cultural #behaviour. tinyurl.com/569u66sv & doi.org/10.1126/scie...

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Ammie Kalan @ammiekalan.bsky.social · Apr 4

Happy to have a new piece in @science.org with my friend Lydia where we draw attention to the significance of animal material culture for understanding human technical evolution and why we should digitally preserve and protect primate tools and tool use sites. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Saving the cultural legacy of wild animals

Loss of biodiversity threatens the study of tool use and other cultural behaviors in animals

www.science.org

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

MPI-EVA Leipzig @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social · Mar 27

Why #humans have a smaller #face than #Neanderthals: In Homo sapiens, facial growth stops at #puberty. New study in #JHE by @alexandraschuh.bsky.social & an intl. research team, incl. Philipp Gunz, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Sarah Freidline. More: tinyurl.com/ywkvwvej & doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

Why humans have a smaller face than Neanderthals

In Homo sapiens, facial growth stops at puberty.

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Jake Holland-Lulewicz @archaeojake.bsky.social · Mar 26

🚨 Our new paper is out today in Communications Earth & Environment (@commsearth.bsky.social)!! “Modern coastal ecosystems of the American Southeast are shaped by deep-time human-environment interactions” Check it out! 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Alejandra Pascual-Garrido @runnerape.bsky.social · Mar 25

📣🐵 🌿 Our study shows that Gombe chimpanzees act as 'engineers', choosing plant materials to make tools based on specific properties that make them ideal for the job. @runnerape.bsky.social, Susana Carvalho, Deus Mjungu, @ellenschulzk.bsky.social, @adamvanc.bsky.social

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees

Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

MPI-EVA Leipzig @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social · Mar 25

Not just any stick. #Chimpanzees understand material properties and choose just the right #tool for the job. New study in @cp-iscience.bsky.social by an intl. research team led by @runnerape.bsky.social & @adamvanc.bsky.social. @ox.ac.uk More: tinyurl.com/59c2wff4 & doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

Chimpanzees understand material properties

Wild chimpanzees choose just the right tools for the job, demonstrating a remarkable understanding of material properties

tinyurl.com

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 25

Authors: @runnerape.bsky.social, Susana Carvalho, Deus Mjungu, @ellenschulzk.bsky.social and @adamvanc.bsky.social. 5/5

Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 25

🧠 The findings hint that our early ancestors likely had similar material engineering skills. Looking at tool biomechanics may provide a new lens for understanding evolution of technology in hominins! 4/5

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 25

🌿 Even within the same plant species, chimps target individual plants yielding more flexible material. Bark was especially preferred over twigs/vines due to lower stiffness. These aren't obvious properties - suggests deep understanding of tool functionality. 3/5

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 25

🔬 The study shows chimps select materials for their termite fishing tools that are more flexible than non-used plant material. This may have a functional reason as flexible tools better navigate the twisting tunnels in termite mounds, possibly allowing for more efficient foraging. 2/5

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 25

Really happy to see this paper out, using field biomechanics we show that wild chimpanzees don't just randomly select plants materials for termite fishing tools – they use a little “folk physics” choosing materials with specific properties! Study in iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful.... 1/5

Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees

Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Alexandra Schuh @alexandraschuh.bsky.social · Mar 24

Very happy to share our new paper on human facial development and evolution out today in JHE 🎉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧵👇

Human midfacial growth pattern differs from that of Neanderthals and chimpanzees

Present-day humans have small and retracted midfaces, while Neanderthals possess large and forwardly projected midfaces. To understand the ontogenetic…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 4

This book “The Wood Age” by Roland Ennos might be of interest. inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/11/17/b...

Book review – The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History

The Wood Age is an eye-opening piece of environmental history that charts how human civilization was built on trees.

inquisitivebiologist.com

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Matthew Skinner @matthewskinnerphd.bsky.social · Feb 13

The Tai Chimpanzee Project is making available microCT scans from their collections on human-fossil-record.org. All proceeds are used to support their mission of conservation and non-invasive research in Tai National Park (taichimpproject.org).

The Human Fossil Record: A Digital Resource for Research and Education

human-fossil-record.org

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Arev P. Sümer @arevsumer.bsky.social · Dec 12

I am very happy to share our new paper on the genetics of some of the first modern humans who ever lived in Europe! We sequenced nuclear DNA from 13 specimens from Ranis in Germany, and found that they belonged to at least 6 individuals. www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/n)

Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture - Nature

Nature - Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Laurits Skov @lauritsskov.bsky.social · Dec 2

Very excited (and a bit nervous) to announce that I will be hiring two Postdocs for my new group(!) in Copenhagen to study the Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA which survives in present-day humans. Retweet will be much appreciated :)

Link for application:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Kevin Hatala @kevinhatala.bsky.social · Nov 28

Excited to share our latest paper, new in Science! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins

For much of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, multiple hominin species coexisted in the same regions of eastern and southern Africa. Due to the limitations of the skeletal fossil record, questions regardi...

www.science.org

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Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 6

We are looking for a 2yr post-doc with experience in experimental biomechanics to research ape locomotion

Adam van Casteren @adamvanc.bsky.social · Mar 6

🚨Job Klaxon🚨

Q: What links biomechanics, human evolution and apes?

A: This 2-year post-doc position available in my new Human and Ape Biomechanics group in the Department of Human Origins @MPI_EVA_Leipzig 👇

www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...

Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

www.eva.mpg.de

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Reposted by Adam van Casteren

Andrew Curry @spoke32.bsky.social · Jan 31

Buried under 8 meters of rock and debris in a German cave, researchers found proof Homo sapiens arrived in northern Europe thousands of years earlier than previously thought—and overlapped with our Neanderthal cousins for millennia. www.science.org/content/arti...

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