John Hawks
@johnhawks.net
Paleoanthropologist | Chair and Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin–Madison 🧪🏺💀https://www.johnhawks.net
All hominins were cultural species. Cultural learning has always been part of their evolved strategies of adaptation to their environments. Culture isn’t last; culture is first.
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-archae...
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-archae...
How archaeologists are missing Pleistocene cultures
I propose a “Culture First” way of looking at ancient remains, instead of the “Culture Last” assumption so pervasive in the field.
www.johnhawks.net
January 11, 2026 at 6:20 PM
All hominins were cultural species. Cultural learning has always been part of their evolved strategies of adaptation to their environments. Culture isn’t last; culture is first.
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-archae...
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-archae...
Thinking about distant water crossings today as I’m reviewing recent work on the habitation of Sulawesi. So many people today habitually underestimate the abilities of early humans.
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-capabl...
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-capabl...
How capable were early human ancestors of crossing open water?
In past populations we should keep in mind the exceptional ability of humans to adapt to new circumstances.
www.johnhawks.net
January 10, 2026 at 5:48 PM
Thinking about distant water crossings today as I’m reviewing recent work on the habitation of Sulawesi. So many people today habitually underestimate the abilities of early humans.
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-capabl...
www.johnhawks.net/p/how-capabl...
Always great to be able to share a perspective on newly described fossil hominins, especially when they may illuminate a critical time in our evolutionary story.
www.johnhawks.net/p/fossils-fr...
www.johnhawks.net/p/fossils-fr...
Fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés, Morocco, and crossroads of human evolution
Jaws, teeth, and a hyena-chewed femur may be close to the common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern people.
www.johnhawks.net
January 9, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Always great to be able to share a perspective on newly described fossil hominins, especially when they may illuminate a critical time in our evolutionary story.
www.johnhawks.net/p/fossils-fr...
www.johnhawks.net/p/fossils-fr...
This is a fascinating concept that provides a way to follow commentary on preprints and subsequent citation, and with the protocol it can stretch across services and databases.
1. My new preprint has its own bluesky account. Why? The problems facing social media & scientific publishing are similar: both are dominated by powerful oligopolies. The @atproto.com tech underlying bluesky that aims to solve the social media prob might also help solve the scientific pub prob 🧪 🧵
1. Preprint: Menopause averted a midlife energetic crisis with help from older children and parents: A simulation study. zenodo.org/records/1814...
Menopause is rare, known to occur only in humans and toothed whales: 🧵
Menopause is rare, known to occur only in humans and toothed whales: 🧵
January 6, 2026 at 11:15 PM
This is a fascinating concept that provides a way to follow commentary on preprints and subsequent citation, and with the protocol it can stretch across services and databases.
New in @nytimes.com on how some research on human origins and genetics are being cut from federal science programs. @carlzimmer.com interviews Brenna Henn, who has done much to illuminate the genetic variation and history of southern African peoples.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...
She Wanted to Improve Genetic Medicine
www.nytimes.com
January 5, 2026 at 8:41 PM
New in @nytimes.com on how some research on human origins and genetics are being cut from federal science programs. @carlzimmer.com interviews Brenna Henn, who has done much to illuminate the genetic variation and history of southern African peoples.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...
This @nytimes.com article on Neanderthal discoveries poses a surprisingly candid set of observations from João Zilhão, including a strong statement about their status as Homo sapiens. I agree completely with this. Neanderthals were not a different species from us.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/s...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/s...
The Year in Neanderthals
www.nytimes.com
January 4, 2026 at 9:36 PM
This @nytimes.com article on Neanderthal discoveries poses a surprisingly candid set of observations from João Zilhão, including a strong statement about their status as Homo sapiens. I agree completely with this. Neanderthals were not a different species from us.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/s...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/s...
Ushbulak, Kazakhstan, is a stratified open-air site with archaeological finds dating to between 42,000 and 36,000 years ago. Blades and blade cores from the site resemble similar-age initial Upper Paleolithic sites in the Altai and Mongolia.
Photo: Mikhail Shunkov and coworkers
Photo: Mikhail Shunkov and coworkers
January 2, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Ushbulak, Kazakhstan, is a stratified open-air site with archaeological finds dating to between 42,000 and 36,000 years ago. Blades and blade cores from the site resemble similar-age initial Upper Paleolithic sites in the Altai and Mongolia.
Photo: Mikhail Shunkov and coworkers
Photo: Mikhail Shunkov and coworkers
Reposted by John Hawks
A few ammonites may have (briefly) survived the horrific environmental effects of the end-Cretaceous meteorite impact! Exciting new study of ammonites above & below the K-Pg boundary in Denmark. 🧪🪨⚒️
The last bombshell paleontology discovery of a year of bombshell discoveries: Ammonites survived the K-PG extinction! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary confirmed by new data from Denmark - Scientific Reports
We provide a reassessment of the hypothesis of ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene (Maastrichtian–Danian) boundary, based on new data from the lower Danian Cerithium Limestone Member at ...
www.nature.com
January 1, 2026 at 4:14 PM
A few ammonites may have (briefly) survived the horrific environmental effects of the end-Cretaceous meteorite impact! Exciting new study of ammonites above & below the K-Pg boundary in Denmark. 🧪🪨⚒️
This is a neat new study using LIDAR to document pre-colonization raised agricultural beds along the Menominee River that separates Wisconsin from Michigan, north of Green Bay.
“massive field systems like these were much more common than previously recognized”
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
“massive field systems like these were much more common than previously recognized”
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
December 30, 2025 at 9:12 PM
This is a neat new study using LIDAR to document pre-colonization raised agricultural beds along the Menominee River that separates Wisconsin from Michigan, north of Green Bay.
“massive field systems like these were much more common than previously recognized”
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
“massive field systems like these were much more common than previously recognized”
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In writing about the new discovery of a tooth of an archaic human from Gua Danang, Sarawak, I reviewed what is known about the “Deep Skull” from nearby Gua Niah: one of the earliest-known modern people in island Southeast Asia, adapted to island rainforest life.
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
December 29, 2025 at 5:29 PM
In writing about the new discovery of a tooth of an archaic human from Gua Danang, Sarawak, I reviewed what is known about the “Deep Skull” from nearby Gua Niah: one of the earliest-known modern people in island Southeast Asia, adapted to island rainforest life.
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
Within a cave used by bird nest traders, archaeologists uncover a single tooth from an ancient group: the first evidence from an extinct hominin on the world’s third largest island. What group lived there in the millennia before modern people arrived?
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
A possible archaic human from Borneo
The find of a single tooth from Gua Danang may be the first evidence of the archaic inhabitants of the island.
www.johnhawks.net
December 28, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Within a cave used by bird nest traders, archaeologists uncover a single tooth from an ancient group: the first evidence from an extinct hominin on the world’s third largest island. What group lived there in the millennia before modern people arrived?
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...
This year new archaeological finds on Sulawesi for the first time established that human relatives were in the islands of Wallacea before one million years ago. I can't wait to find out more about what they may have been like.
www.johnhawks.net/p/hominins-v...
www.johnhawks.net/p/hominins-v...
Hominins voyaged to Sulawesi before one million years ago
New report of stone artifacts from Calio place human relatives in Wallacea more broadly and earlier than anyone knew.
www.johnhawks.net
December 28, 2025 at 4:27 PM
This year new archaeological finds on Sulawesi for the first time established that human relatives were in the islands of Wallacea before one million years ago. I can't wait to find out more about what they may have been like.
www.johnhawks.net/p/hominins-v...
www.johnhawks.net/p/hominins-v...
Con Moong Cave, Vietnam, has evidence of ash, burials, and shell middens from the terminal Pleistocene. Even earlier—by 42,000 years ago—people used the cave, alternating with periods when bats were present and humans absent, evidenced by sediment geochemistry.
Photo: Thanh Hoa Newspaper
Photo: Thanh Hoa Newspaper
December 24, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Con Moong Cave, Vietnam, has evidence of ash, burials, and shell middens from the terminal Pleistocene. Even earlier—by 42,000 years ago—people used the cave, alternating with periods when bats were present and humans absent, evidenced by sediment geochemistry.
Photo: Thanh Hoa Newspaper
Photo: Thanh Hoa Newspaper
One hundred and one years ago today, a young Australian anatomist worked with knitting needles to chip the hard rock from the face of a 3-million-year-old child. Together they placed human ancestry in Africa, as Charles Darwin had predicted fifty years before.
www.johnhawks.net/p/the-circum...
www.johnhawks.net/p/the-circum...
The circumstances of the Taung discovery
The textbook story of the fossil leaves out a wider context in which scientists interpreted the first evidence of Australopithecus.
www.johnhawks.net
December 23, 2025 at 2:12 PM
One hundred and one years ago today, a young Australian anatomist worked with knitting needles to chip the hard rock from the face of a 3-million-year-old child. Together they placed human ancestry in Africa, as Charles Darwin had predicted fifty years before.
www.johnhawks.net/p/the-circum...
www.johnhawks.net/p/the-circum...
The solstice has always mattered, more to our ancient ancestors than to most of us today. I always wonder when I am under dark skies what wisdom they had that we may have forgotten.
www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-o...
www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-o...
When did our ancestors start looking up to the stars?
Changes in the sky have been important to peoples throughout the world. That connection may go back much further than our species.
www.johnhawks.net
December 21, 2025 at 2:23 PM
The solstice has always mattered, more to our ancient ancestors than to most of us today. I always wonder when I am under dark skies what wisdom they had that we may have forgotten.
www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-o...
www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-o...
The Yarımburgaz cave complex is around 22 km west of Istanbul, in the Thracian part of Turkey. An upper cave is the location of a Byzantine church, while a lower chamber has much older Middle Pleistocene record of choppers, modified flake tools, and remains of cave bears.
Photo: CeeGee (Wikipedia)
Photo: CeeGee (Wikipedia)
December 20, 2025 at 6:21 PM
The Yarımburgaz cave complex is around 22 km west of Istanbul, in the Thracian part of Turkey. An upper cave is the location of a Byzantine church, while a lower chamber has much older Middle Pleistocene record of choppers, modified flake tools, and remains of cave bears.
Photo: CeeGee (Wikipedia)
Photo: CeeGee (Wikipedia)
Reposted by John Hawks
This is a good time to talk about the TRUE genetics revolution brought in by sequencing the human genome:
The genetic underpinning of traits is not simple, will never be simple. Complex gene-gene interactions are the rule, not the exception 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The genetic underpinning of traits is not simple, will never be simple. Complex gene-gene interactions are the rule, not the exception 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Biobanks reveal genetic complexity in human evolution
Tiny genetic variations between humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans might not be all they were cracked up to be.
www.nature.com
December 19, 2025 at 5:29 PM
This is a good time to talk about the TRUE genetics revolution brought in by sequencing the human genome:
The genetic underpinning of traits is not simple, will never be simple. Complex gene-gene interactions are the rule, not the exception 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The genetic underpinning of traits is not simple, will never be simple. Complex gene-gene interactions are the rule, not the exception 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by John Hawks
This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com
December 19, 2025 at 6:46 PM
This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
“GenAI for Africa, a funding call from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme…Out of 215 submissions, only two projects are expected to be funded, giving a success rate of under 1%”
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com
December 19, 2025 at 10:08 PM
“GenAI for Africa, a funding call from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme…Out of 215 submissions, only two projects are expected to be funded, giving a success rate of under 1%”
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Good coverage in the @economist.com about the investigation of Denisovan ancestry and possible connections to the Yunxian Homo erectus group. (paywall)
www.economist.com/science-and-...
www.economist.com/science-and-...
A debate is raging over the origins of an elusive cousin to modern humans
Who were the Denisovans?
www.economist.com
December 19, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Good coverage in the @economist.com about the investigation of Denisovan ancestry and possible connections to the Yunxian Homo erectus group. (paywall)
www.economist.com/science-and-...
www.economist.com/science-and-...
Reposted by John Hawks
#FossilFriday Stack of opalised vertebrae from an Early Cretaceous ichthyosaur. Another remarkable fossil on display in the South Australia Museum, Adelaide.
December 19, 2025 at 5:55 AM
#FossilFriday Stack of opalised vertebrae from an Early Cretaceous ichthyosaur. Another remarkable fossil on display in the South Australia Museum, Adelaide.
It has been a remarkable year of discoveries. From ancient Pompeii, to the medieval Avars, to the American Southwest. Plus some advances in 3D organization of ancient genomes and an ancient disease with unexpected roots. And lots about Denisovans!
www.johnhawks.net/p/top-10-dis...
www.johnhawks.net/p/top-10-dis...
Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2025
In a year full of Denisovan discoveries, I look at some of the top highlights of research.
www.johnhawks.net
December 19, 2025 at 3:21 PM
It has been a remarkable year of discoveries. From ancient Pompeii, to the medieval Avars, to the American Southwest. Plus some advances in 3D organization of ancient genomes and an ancient disease with unexpected roots. And lots about Denisovans!
www.johnhawks.net/p/top-10-dis...
www.johnhawks.net/p/top-10-dis...
Reposted by John Hawks
Will an anthropologist be able to identify your sex and gender from your bones 100 years from now? I sure hope so!
Read my essay on the limited and limiting methods we currently have for sex estimation to learn where the science has room to improve.
www.prosocial.world/posts/an-ant...
Read my essay on the limited and limiting methods we currently have for sex estimation to learn where the science has room to improve.
www.prosocial.world/posts/an-ant...
An Anthropologist’s Perspective on Sex and Gender in the Skeleton
Anthropological methods show that skeletal sex is an estimate, not a certainty, revealing the limits of binary claims about human identity.
www.prosocial.world
December 18, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Will an anthropologist be able to identify your sex and gender from your bones 100 years from now? I sure hope so!
Read my essay on the limited and limiting methods we currently have for sex estimation to learn where the science has room to improve.
www.prosocial.world/posts/an-ant...
Read my essay on the limited and limiting methods we currently have for sex estimation to learn where the science has room to improve.
www.prosocial.world/posts/an-ant...
Reposted by John Hawks
Review of the use of bone technology which used to be taken as a diagnostic of modern behaviour:
'In this contribution, we present a global review of the diverse range of roles that bone tools played during the period from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early to Mid Holocene (c. 8,000 years ago) […]
'In this contribution, we present a global review of the diverse range of roles that bone tools played during the period from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early to Mid Holocene (c. 8,000 years ago) […]
Original post on c.im
c.im
December 17, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Review of the use of bone technology which used to be taken as a diagnostic of modern behaviour:
'In this contribution, we present a global review of the diverse range of roles that bone tools played during the period from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early to Mid Holocene (c. 8,000 years ago) […]
'In this contribution, we present a global review of the diverse range of roles that bone tools played during the period from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early to Mid Holocene (c. 8,000 years ago) […]
Ghar-e Boof, Iran, has Upper Paleolithic stone and faunal assemblages from 42,000–35,000 years ago. The people who used the cave over time shifted their hunting toward more difficult-to-hunt small animals, using tools made with bladelets.
Photo: Nicholas Conard
Photo: Nicholas Conard
December 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Ghar-e Boof, Iran, has Upper Paleolithic stone and faunal assemblages from 42,000–35,000 years ago. The people who used the cave over time shifted their hunting toward more difficult-to-hunt small animals, using tools made with bladelets.
Photo: Nicholas Conard
Photo: Nicholas Conard