ASU Institute of Human Origins

Where Did Humans Evolve? Gazing at the Changing Nature of the Garden of Eden

Where did humans evolve? What was the scenery like? And what should we make of the "savanna hypothesis"?

What a pleasure to find so much clarity on these questions!

My brilliant guest was Denise Su at ASU's Institute of Human
Origins! @asuiho.bsky.social.

🎧 Enjoy!

Geochronological insights of middle miocene primates and vertebrate fauna of Ramnagar (J&K, India): Integrating litho- and magnetostratigraphy The Middle Miocene site of Ramnagar (Jammu and Kashmir), India is well-known for its fossil primates including Sivapithecus indicus, Kapi ramnagarensis, and Ramadapis sahnii. Although always suggested...

A new paper out from our Miocene project in India - updated FAD for Sivapithecus in India, ~200,000 years older than in Pakistan. Congrats to Deepak Choudhary who put in an extraordinary amount of work on this. Also to Dan, Chris, Biren, Rajeev and the rest of the team. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Tiny bones. Massive breakthrough. 🦴✨
An ASU PhD student has developed a mathematical formula that helps scientists identify animal size from tiny bone fragments.
Read more: news.asu.edu/20260127-sci...

#asu #science #education #anthropology #archaeology #technology
@asubeinghuman.bsky.social

New research!

The paper, “New finds shed light on diet and locomotion in Australopithecus deyiremeda,” was published in the journal Nature this month. The team was led by Arizona State University paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie.

Read more: bit.ly/48CmpMi

A massive eruption 74,000 years ago affected the whole planet – archaeologists use volcanic glass to figure out how people survived Researchers can study volcanic deposits at archaeological sites to piece together how ancient people responded to catastrophic events.

🌋 A massive eruption 74,000 years ago affected the whole planet – archaeologist Jayde Hirniak uses volcanic glass to figure out how people survived. Hirniak is a PhD affiliate at IHO. Her new article appears in @us.theconversation.com!
bit.ly/4nChp05
#volcano #eruption #archaeologist

New essay about our collaborative deep history work in Tanzania!

Thanks to @sapiens.org for inviting me to contribute & for editorial support

Fidelis Masao, Husna Mashaka, Sam Porter, & many more contribute to this work. Thanks @leakeyfoundation.org @asubeinghuman.bsky.social & @asuiho.bsky.social

ASU scientists uncover new fossils — and a new species of ancient human ancestor

The fossils found in northeastern Ethiopia date between 2.6M to 2.8M years ago, shed new light on human evolution
bit.ly/416zE4S #paleoanthropology #humanevolution #fossils #africa

New discoveries of Australopithecus and Homo from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia - Nature Hominin fossils from the Ledi-Geraru Research Project area, Ethiopia, suggest that early Homo and Australopithecus species co-existed in the region more than 2.5 million years ago.

Big congrats to my grad school officemate Brian Villmoare & other @asuiho.bsky.social associated alumni & colleagues on recovering fossils from a very important but poorly-sampled time between 3-2 million years ago. Looking to be significant overlap of Australopithecus & early Homo in East Africa.

ASU expert in cultural evolution elected to National Academy of Sciences | ASU News A leading authority on cultural evolution, Robert Boyd, a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change and a research scientist with the Institute of Human Origi...

Join us in congratulating Robert Boyd, a SHESC professor and research scientist with the @asuiho.bsky.social, who has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences — one of the highest honors a researcher can receive! 🌟

news.asu.edu/20250505-uni...

ASU primatologist Joan Silk talks about her new essay, "The natural history of social bonds" YouTube video by ASU Institute of Human Origins

Why are humans social creatures? An ASU primatologist at IHO looks to evolution and other mammals for answers
Watch the Interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBm9... #primates #evolution #social

We’re the Worms Gone Wild Lab! Led by Dr. India Schneider-Crease, we take a One Health approach to studying the ecology and evolution of infectious disease dynamics in natural systems. Our projects focus on disease networks and multi-host pathogens, primarily working with geladas and Kinda baboons!

Check out the new article about IHO Research Scientist Tom Morgan's work!

IHO Director and Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment, Yohannes Haile-Selassie has a new article out with @nature.com "Why Africans should be telling the story of human origins" Read more: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Turkana research assistant Amuria Lotiira holds a saliva collection tube and explains the protocol to potential participants in an ASU study. In 2015, a team tested levels of cortisol and testosterone from saliva samples from Turkana pastoralist warriors in Kenya. A Turkana-area chief sits to the left of Lotiira. Photo by Matthew Zefferman

New research indicates effects of PTSD on body vary by culture: ASU scientists first to examine hormones and PTSD in non-industrialized society Read more: bit.ly/41eQIou

✨Join us for Open Door 2025! ✨
A 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 event for the entire family 📆
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: Tempe campus: Saturday, Feb. 22, 1–5 p.m.
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: Location: Walton Center for Planetary Health (WCPH) Floors 1 and 2 Look for the signs and archaeologists 🔍
𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴: 🅿️ Free at the Tyler Street Parking Structure
opendoor.asu.edu

Get your tickets now and mark your calendars for this special evening event in April! More information: iho.asu.edu/events

See Lucy Run, 3.2 Million Years Ago Our early human ancestor was capable of running, if slowly, a new study finds.

See Lucy Run, 3.2 Million Years Ago www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/s...

📊Decades of data show age plays an important role in primate reproduction -- with Jacob Feder a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with the Institute of Human Origins. Read more: bit.ly/40NLZeA

Thank you to @mammalssuck.bsky.social Katie Hinde for the invite to join the Blue Sky community of science. Looking forward to 2024 for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of IHO's "Founding Fossil"—Lucy—A Year for Human Origins—and why it is important to understand our human past for the future!