I wrote three long pieces for my Substack:
- Yo mama’s mama’s mama’s mama… etc.
- Our African origins: the more we understand, the less we know ($).
- What happens in Denisova Cave stays in Denisova Cave… until now ($).
I’m thinking about where I’m going to go in relation to this topic, and i think it may be in the direction of Eurasian back-migration to African and what we know now.
Also, I’m at nearly 60 podcasts after more than a year of the Substack. Please remember to rate it positively.
I really liked these essays. An interesting issue to be dealt with is the early spread into Eurasia, as it is very confusing which branch spread to where, the entire “Casal-Eurasian” thing and possible interaction with remnants of even earlier spaiens’ in Eurasia.
Why does the Neanderthal in the picture appear to have a full-blown chin? As I understand it, Neanderthals had receding chins, at best.
It is claimed that the human chin is a recent innovation in primates, possibly driven by sexual selection, analogous to antlers in elk and deer, cf
N. E. Holton, L. L. Bonner, J. E. Scott, S. D. Marshall, R. G. Franciscus, T. E. Southard. The ontogeny of the chin: an analysis of allometric and biomechanical scaling. Journal of Anatomy, 2015; DOI: 10.1111/joa.12307