While researching his new book, So Much Stuff , Chip Colwell, Associate Research Professor of Anthropology, studied the purpose of gift giving in human history. "Why would people simply hand over something precious or valuable when they could use it themselves?" he asks. See his full article in The Conversation...

Jamie Hodgkins, Associate Professor of Anthropology, has been interviewed by another archaeologist about her review of the Homo Naledi research for a YouTube channel (39,476 views). An international podcast called Science VS. (#1 science podcast on Spotify) also interviewed her for its most recent episode .

A detailed review of evidence, slated to be published in the Journal Evolutionary Anthropology , challenges the obstetrical dilemma - the theory of trade‐off between selection for a larger birth canal (permitting successful passage of a big‐brained human neonate) and the smaller pelvic dimensions required for bipedal locomotion. In the...

Jamie Hodgkins, Associate Professor of Anthropology, is one of four scientists who voiced concerns about the research behind the recent, popular Netflix documentary Cave of Bones . In the documentary high-profile researchers say small-brained Homo naledi exhibited advanced behaviors such as burials. But the peer-reviewers of the paper making those...

In this piece Anna G. Warrener, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, discusses the preoccupation with pelvis size and how it hides a complicated story of interacting biological and cultural factors that shape the human birth experience. She says, “The obstetrical dilemma , a term first coined by Sherwood Washburn in 1960,...

“The authors’ primary finding that human-like prenatal growth rates emerged less than one million years ago, in concert with major increases in brain size, is convincing,” says Anna Warrener, Assistant Professor of Anthropology. “Teeth are frequently found in the fossil record and would be a fantastic tool for such evaluations...

Associate Professor of Anthropology Jamie Hodgkins (and Jessica Thompson of Yale University) recently shared their personal experiences of being pregnant or new moms while conducting fieldwork. They call for family-friendly work cultures in an effort to increase the diversity of people engaged in field sciences. In an effort to evaluate...

Paleoarchaeologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology Jamie Hodgkins talks about what it was like to live during a time of critical change on Earth roughly 10,000 years ago. In the Arma Veirana Cave in northwestern Italy, Hodgkins is part a team of researchers who recently discovered the oldest infant burial...

Associate Professor of Anthropology and National Geographic Explorer Jamie Hodgkins is the lead author of a study gaining worldwide attention, published in the journal Scientific Reports, “ An infant burial from Arma Veirana in northwestern Italy provides insights into funerary practices and female personhood in early Mesolithic Europe .” Hodgkins...

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that around 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the US from March of 2020 to March of 2021. That’s the largest number of fatal drug overdoses ever recorded in a 12 month period in the US. The synthetic drug...