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Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D. @deadbovids.bsky.social · Jul 17

Episode 3 of our Ng'ipalajem video series with Justus Erus Edung, talking about the biggest discovery of his career, Kenyanthropus!

Sehemu 3 ya video Ng'ipalajem na Justus Erus Edung anazungumza uguduzi mkuu wa maisha ya kazi yake, Kenyanthropus!

Palaeotrails @palaeotrails.bsky.social · Jul 17

Justus Erus Edung was only 25 years old when he discovered Kenyanthropus platyops in a team led by Prof. Meave Leakey in 1999.

This 3.5 million year old “flat-faced” skull quickly grabbed international headlines and changed the course of human evolution.

#fossils #turkana #humanevolution

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Jul 18

Fabulous news that @martamlahr.bsky.social has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy 🍾🍾🍾

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Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D. @deadbovids.bsky.social · Jul 15

Episode 2 of our Ng'ipalajem video series showing this summer's research! Today, I show some antelope teeth I'm using to understand paleoenvironments

Sehemu 2 wa Ng'ipalajem video inaonyesha utafiti wa kiangazi hiki! Leo naonyesha meno wa nyumbu na swala ambayo natumia kwa kuelewa mazingira ya kale

Palaeotrails @palaeotrails.bsky.social · Jul 15

Episode 2: Faunal identification with @deadbovids.bsky.social

Other than identification, tooth wear pattern can give us exciting insights into faunal diet and palaeoecology.

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Palaeotrails @palaeotrails.bsky.social · Jul 13

The joy of sorting LSA lithics from Turkana under the guidance of @robfoley.bsky.social

Follow us on Instagram for more www.instagram.com/palaeotrails...

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Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D. @deadbovids.bsky.social · Jul 12

It's a bit late for #FossilFriday but I have to show this lovely young adult Palaeoloxodon (giant elephant) jaw from the new Middle Pleistocene site I'm working at in Turkana, Kenya!

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21 Group @21group.bsky.social · Jun 27

New blog posting, inspired by @robfoley.bsky.social 's witty critique of UK universities

The Great University Subsidy Scandal

21percent.org?p=2278

Many of us routinely invite the examiner to lunch or dinner at our homes with other students & postdocs at our expense

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jonathan r goodman @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social · Jul 1

In a follow-up to our study on accent mimicry last year, we've found that natives are the best at detecting accent mimicry.

People from other English speaking countries were, however, worse at mimicry detection than were native listeners.

@robfoley.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Findings from our accents study follow up: image showing that study
accent–listeners had the highest probability of a correct response (62.49%–70.12%), followed by UK/Ireland (53.18%–62.44%), and other English-speaking country (50.03%–56.85%) and non-English speaking country (49.72%–58.32%).

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Palaeotrails @palaeotrails.bsky.social · Jul 11

What does the Ng'ipalajem team do?

Ng’ipalajem, meaning Ancestors in Turkana, is an ERC-funded project.

Led by @martamlahr.bsky.social, the project investigates how the emergence of Homo sapiens is deeply intertwined with Africa’s long-term environmental and ecological history.

#humanevolution

We spend long periods of time in Kenya collecting data in the collections, understanding the landscape and looking for fossils.

Picture credits: Sarah Paris

The rest of the year is spent analysing data, honing skills and preparing for upcoming field work. During this time, we develop new methodologies, attend conferences, write papers and discuss our findings

Picture credits: Sarah Paris, Eleanor Williams

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Jul 10

Breaking the barriers! Important new paper by Daniel Green and others discovering 18 million years of proteins of East African mammals!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature

The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...

www.nature.com

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Jun 19

Talking yesterday evening with @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social at the launch of his new book Invisible Rivals (yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... )

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Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · Jun 7

Race, ethnicity don’t match genetic ancestry, according to a large U.S. study www.science.org/content/arti...

Race, ethnicity don’t match genetic ancestry, according to a large U.S. study

Data from the All of Us program confirm what many geneticists have long promoted

www.science.org

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Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · May 19

Are we hardwired to fall for autocrats? It’s human nature to trust strongmen, but we’ve also evolved the tools to resist them www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Are we hardwired to fall for autocrats?

It’s human nature to trust strongmen, but we’ve also evolved the tools to resist them

www.theguardian.com

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Apr 30

Many congratulations, Rob! So deserved!

Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · Apr 30

Happy to share the news that Rob Boyd was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He's not on social media, but I am happy to pass along messages.

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Apr 29

Nearly 50 years since David 'Analytical Archaeology’ Clarke died tragically young. A sunny day seemed the right time to pay a much overdue visit to where he is buried in Great Chesterford. Still much missed - not just for what he would have contributed but as a brilliant, witty and cheerful person.

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Marta Mirazon Lahr @martamlahr.bsky.social · Apr 18

Amazing work with a fabulous team 🤩

Dr Sarah Paris @sarah-paris.bsky.social · Apr 17

A reel of our recent field season in Turkana - a privilege & a joy to work with such fantastic people in an amazing place!
@cam-archaeology.bsky.social

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Emily Hallinan @eshallinan.bsky.social · Mar 25

Our new paper on 3D GM has all the models and script available for others to apply our method. We use it to demonstrate interregional variability of Nubian Levallois cores but it has broader potential for lithic studies #openscience #archaeology #3DGM @icarehb.bsky.social @jmcascalheira.bsky.social

João Cascalheira @jmcascalheira.bsky.social · Mar 25

📢 We have a new paper out!! Led by the incredible @eshallinan.bsky.social we introduce a novel application of three-dimensional geometric morphometrics (GM) to quantify the shape variability of Nubian Levallois cores. #archaeology #openscience @icarehb.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Quantifying Levallois: a 3D geometric morphometric approach to Nubian technology - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

Levallois technology, a hallmark of Middle Palaeolithic stone tool manufacture, involves sophisticated core reduction strategies that have major implications for understanding human cognitive and tech...

link.springer.com

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Marta Mirazon Lahr @martamlahr.bsky.social · Mar 24

Excellent thread - the revolution in our understanding of cellular biology, critical for modern medicine, and now tragically impacted by US cuts to NIH funding

Ed Hagen @edhagen.net · Mar 23

1. What's at risk by disrupting NIH? With only a bit of hyperbole: a mechanistic understanding of life itself, & therefore better treatments for cancer, dementias, autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, birth defects, aging & more 🧪

Notes on a revolution interrupted 🧵

Illustration of a cell depicting locations of various proteins

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Mar 21

Congratulations to @martamlahr.bsky.social on her News and Views in Nature on Ignacio de la Torre and colleagues' discovery of early bone tools at Olduvai. The site that keeps on giving!
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The early origins of bone-tool manufacturing traditions by hominins 1.5 million years ago

Excavations at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, reveal evidence of the systematic use of animal bones as a raw material for prehistoric tools.

www.nature.com

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jonathan r goodman @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social · Mar 7

Thanks so much to Jean Black @yalebooks.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social and @robfoley.bsky.social – would not have been possible without you

@darwincollegecam.bsky.social @cambridgeuni.bsky.social @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @engagewcs.bsky.social

Madeleine Milburn Agency @mmagency.bsky.social · Mar 7

We are so excited to share that @yalepress.bsky.social has acquired the ground-breaking first book, Invisible Rivals, from social scientist @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social

Please follow the link to see the full deal announcement on our website, here: bit.ly/41K8QIa

Yale University Press has acquired the ground-breaking first book from social scientist Jonathan R. Goodman. - Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency

Yale University Press signs Jonathan R. Goodman’s Invisible Rivals, outlining a new approach to the evolution of human behaviour: Humans are inherently neither nice nor nasty, but we use cooperative a...

bit.ly

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Cambridge Archaeology @cam-archaeology.bsky.social · Feb 14

This morning, some of our researchers took part in a McDonald Institute knapping workshop focused on microlithic technologies with brilliant guidance from expert John Lord!

Thanks to @robfoley.bsky.social for organising this opportunity and to @kingscollege.bsky.social for kindly hosting us

A selection of flakes produced by John Lord

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jonathan r goodman @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social · Feb 4

In an article for @uk.theconversation.com, @rjmilne.bsky.social and I argue that while the UK's plan to foster innovation through AI is ambitious, it will rely on public trust for success.

Yet anyone can claim to be trustworthy: how do we tell who actually is?

theconversation.com/government-n...

Government needs to show that its AI plan can be trusted to deal with serious risks when it comes to health data

The use of patient data has been controversial in the past.

theconversation.com

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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · Jan 26

Very nice post from Daniel Nettle, honouring Margo Wilson

"..a particularly successful example of how you can bring evolutionary understanding to social science topics and be genuinely constructive"

www.danielnettle.eu/2025/01/26/m...

Margo Wilson, and how to do evolutionary human science

In October 2024, I had the great honour of travelling to Hamilton to give the Margo Wilson Memorial Lecture. It was fifteen years since Margo’s death. Preparing the lecture gave me the oppo…

www.danielnettle.eu

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Feb 3

The HEIRS meeting at ICArEHB last week was as enjoyable as it was impressive. A wealth of early career talent (and the occasional older ones!). The development of scientific and quantitative techniques is really transforming human evolutionary studies. Congratulations and thanks to the organisers.

Felix Riede @felixthehauskat.bsky.social · Jan 30

Rarely have I been to such an inspiring event, meeting old friends and new ones - what an amazing group of people: @ceciliapad.bsky.social @heliosdlbs.bsky.social @smartenwinter.bsky.social @svalver.bsky.social @robfoley.bsky.social @eshallinan.bsky.social @hannesrathmann.bsky.social and many more!

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James Clark @jclark997.bsky.social · Jan 23

🏺🦣 Very pleased to share the latest chapter from my PhD (with Gonzalo Linares-Matás), “Setbacks in the use of a handaxe: lithic investment in the Early Acheulean” doi.org/10.1007/s125... /1

Setbacks in the use of a handaxe: lithic investment and seasonality in the Early Acheulean - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

From their first appearance in the archaeological record, the varying degree of biface presence in individual assemblages has long been a notable aspect of discussions surrounding the nature of the Ea...

doi.org

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Manuel Will @manuelwill.bsky.social · Jan 23

Are you studying technological complexity in #archaeology? If so, here is an open call for a Special Issue on 'Technological Complexity & Archaeological Interpretation in the Deep Past' which I am co-editing in JAMT! More information here or contact me! link.springer.com/collections/... - Pls share!

Technological Complexity and Archaeological Interpretation in the Deep Past

Complexity has been both an integral but also heavily debated concept within anthropology and archaeology since the disciplines' professionalization in the ...

link.springer.com

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