I am really excited to share news of this new jaw...until now Paranthropus had been conspicuously absent from the Afar.
Fieldwork at Mille-Logya is not easy, and this fossil is the result of years of very hard work (and a lot of days of dry screening by our team)!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
All NSF SBE DDRIG solicitations have been archived and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Grants currently submitted will be processed, but as always, chances of funding remain very low. This means anyone aiming for the upcoming deadline will not be able to submit. 1/3
Also noteworthy is this parrot at our accommodations who ripped open almost every bag of sediment.
A hyrax mandible eroding out of karstic sediments
Hyrax cranium
#FossilFriday recap of a great field season excavating Pleistocene mammal fossils in the Cango Valley of South Africa! Featuring lots of caves, lots of hyrax bones, great collaborators, and only a few snakes.
Blue antelope mandible
Chacma baboon maxillary and canine
Blue antelope mandible
Caracal skull
Some of the specimens from our new study published this week! www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....
#FossilFriday
Couldn’t have done it without my co-authors, including Kaedan O’Brien @deadbovids.bsky.social
This is a grazer-rich fossil community, including extinct species like the giant long-horned buffalo (Syncerus antiquuus).
The fauna supports models of increased moisture availability and grassy vegetation during glacial periods in the southwestern cape of South Africa.
🚨new paper alert! 🚨
“Paleoecological implications of the large mammals from a late glacial hyena den at Besaansklip (southwestern Cape, South Africa)”
We present a detailed analysis and description of the mammalian fauna from a late glacial fossilized hyena den in South Africa.
(Link below)
So exciting!! I miss those tiny little critters! Looking forward to catching up in the field in a few weeks 🐀🦴🦇
Had a great week in Denver for the paleoanthropology society conference with #SAA2025 and a few days in the mammalogy collection at the Denver museum researching African bovids! It was so nice to meet new people and catch up with old friends
The US National Science Foundation, a major funder of basic academic research, has reopened a website that distributes money from research grants to scientists
https://go.nature.com/4hhd5Aq
Thanks Kaedan! happy to have finally made the switch to a platform I can post (infrequently) about my research and not deal with sexist comments 🎉
Follow along for updates on South African paleoecology, mammal paleontology, and human evolution!
