Andy I.R. Herries at La Trobe Archaeoogy

Hominin postcranial remains from Drimolen Main Quarry

Hominin postcranial remains from Drimolen Main Quarry, South Africa 🏺🧪
@caleyorr.bsky.social , @ozarchaeomaglab.bsky.social et al
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

These results might reflect taxonomic variation or evolutionary mosaicism of the postcrania.

Latests paper from the ARC funded #Drimolen team in our aim to fully publish the hominin fossil material excavated from Drimolen in South Africa since 1994 ( @latrobeuni.bsky.social ). Scans of the postcranial material are available online: human-fossil-record.org/index.php?%2...

Postcranial fossils from the site of Drimolen in the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa provide further insights into hominin paleobiology at approximately 2.0 million years ago!
New study by Caley M. Orr et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We've made our 3D scans of these Drimolen postcranial specimens available in the online archive at The Human Fossil Record. Hopefully access to these fossils contributes well to other studies of early hominin postcranial anatomy & variation. Meanwhile, fieldwork & analysis at Drimolen continue. 9/

I'm happy to present our paper in which we describe hominin postcrania from Drimolen. Many of these specimens sat in a drawer at Wits Uni for > 20 years. It's amusing to me that the image here includes two fossils in that drawer that were labeled "hominin" but that we decided are not! 1/

MLD 1, StW 573 positioned in Frankfurt Horizontal in posterior view. Black dotted line demonstrates the configuration of the superior temporal lines, the red arrow indicates the configuration of the external occipital protuberance, and the blue line demonstrates the slope of the parietals relative to a vertical plane.

The StW 573 Little Foot Fossil Should Not Be Attributed to Australopithecus prometheus 🏺🧪
Jesse Martin, @ozarchaeomaglab.bsky.social et al
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Finds morphology does not support assigning specimen to A. prometheus because it does not share a unique suite traits.

Black text on white background under a square blue icon on the top left. Screenshot of tweet from the ARC saying they’ll announce outcomes of Centres of Excellence on Tuesday 9th Dec. 2025.

ARC says they’ll announce Centres of Excellence outcomes tomorrow (Tuesday 9th Dec).

This is more than 2 months late, most likely due to the new security checking requirements for ARC grants. Centres of Excellence grants also need to have been approved by the Minister.

Black text on white background underneath the Australian coat of arms at the top. Larger text near the top says "SENATOR DAVID POCOCK", "MEDIA RELEASE" and the headline in the largest print says "ARC RESTRUCTURE RISKS JOBS"?.

“This feels like yet another attack on our research community that is already under siege”

Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇

Happy to share the new virtual collection of comparative anatomy, SKELETONS ONLINE (cor.iphes.cat).

The specimens come from the comparative anatomy collection of @iphes-cerca.bsky.social , in Tarragona (Spain).

Please, use it and share!!!

Emails reveal planned job cuts at research funding body Research council staff face jobs amid 'secret' restructure.

This is quite an investigation into ARC’s proposed restructure & job cuts by @jennaprice.bsky.social.

You know you’ve botched your “review” when several staff complain to a Senator!

ARC also ran a witch hunt to find people who might’ve “leaked”.

Ugly stuff.

Amid all this, there seems to be no clear rationale given for either a restructure or, more importantly, cutting jobs right now.

As Sen. @davidpocock.bsky.social said, the Strategic Examination of R&D hasn't been completed.

And the ARC has proposed a massive overhaul of it's entire grants system.

New open access paper in AJBA led by my former PhD student Jesse Martin now @cam-archaeology.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

"The StW 573 Little Foot Fossil Should Not Be Attributed to Australopithecus prometheus"

To add context, part of why there were so many more applicants is because they moved DECRA back six months, effectively skipping funding the scheme for a year. They had to extend eligibility as a result, so this was essentially two years in one. But with no adjustment to number of grants awarded.

Low success rate in early career grants ‘deeply disappointing’ - Research Professional News “Decay continues” as Australian Research Council’s Decra scheme announces 13.1 per cent success rate

Here's a report from Jenny Sinclair @jsresearchpro.bsky.social on the low success rate for DECRAs this week, driven by high demand and low Government funding for early career researchers in Australia.

[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]

Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished Wave of mass brutality accompanied the collapse of the first pan-European culture

Fascinating article! www.science.org/content/arti...

Are the job losses and restructure being considered by the ARC because of this?

Wonderful to be part of this succesful ARC LIEF for building further luminesence dating infrastructure for archaeology at the University of Adelaide. Sorry to those that missed out.

We’ve all seen the evidence that ARC are already stretched. They already outsource so much admin to university research offices – duplication across all unis – & have zero capacity to inform the public about what tax-payer money is funding.

Their response? Reduce capacity further!

Utter nonsense!

The “consultation” process is still going. ARC staff whose positions may be lost have been informed & the union has apparently been briefed.

But the source says the rationale behind the restructure and the potential job losses is vague.

ARC are considering a restructure in which jobs there will be lost, a source tells me.

This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before!

I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.

Screenshot of ARC "network messages" webpage stating that Centres of Excellence outcomes are "postponed". Blue text on white background as a heading, above an image of concentric part circles, to make a sort-of whirlpool pattern, above black text on white background.

#CentresOfExcellence #CE26

ARC has "postponed" announcement of Centres of Excellence outcomes!

It says "due diligence checks" are still being carried out on some applications.

www.arc.gov.au/news-publica...

CSIRO to cut up to 350 research jobs in major overhaul After 440 positions were slashed last year, the CSIRO has announced more staff cuts across the country in a bid to remain financially viable.

“CSIRO has announced it will slash up to 350 jobs as the national science agency grapples with long-term financial challenges … with current funding failing to keep pace with the rising costs of running a modern science agency.”

Not “challenges”. They’re choices. 😡

We are both part of the ARC grant and have done two field seasons together

Long form news article in @science.org covering our latest collaborations between the Drimolen and Kromdraai teams as part of a new 4 year @Australian Research Council Discovery Grant

Three ancient human relatives once shared the same valley. Did they meet—and compete? The world’s greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, in South Africa, poses a 2-million-year-old riddle of coexistence

The world’s greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, in South Africa, poses a 2-million-year-old riddle of coexistence. scim.ag/46xvUwV

Uniform, circular, and shallow pitting on two Paranthropus robustus teeth from Drimolen Main Quarry (DMQ; southern Africa).

Uniform, circular, and shallow enamel pitting in hominins: Prevalence, morphological associations, and potential taxonomic significance 🏺🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Remarkable consistency across species, time and geography suggests these enamel pits may be something quite interesting.

2-million-year-old pitted teeth from our ancient relatives reveal secrets about human evolution Curiously uniform dimples on the teeth of ancient hominins may give scientists a new way to trace their origins and relationships.

2-million-year-old pitted teeth from our ancient relatives reveal secrets about human evolution theconversation.com/2-million-ye...

Uniform, circular, and shallow enamel pitting in hominins: Prevalence, morphological associations, and potential taxonomic significance This study explores a particular form of enamel pitting originally identified in Paranthropus robustus. We call this uniform, circular, and shallow (U…

Uniform, circular, and shallow enamel pitting in hominins: Prevalence,
morphological associations, and potential taxonomic signals www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter...

Worth a read for any up and coming Palaeoanthropologists about how not to behave. Let's leave this culture behind in our discipline.

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...