Dr. Abigail Desmond

"Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe. We need the languages of both science and poetry to save us from merely stockpiling endless ‘information’ that fails to inform our ignorance or our irresponsibility." from "Deep in Admiration" by Ursula K. Le Guin

"Deep in Admiration" was a talk given at the conference Anthropocene: Arts of Living on a Dangerous Planet at UC Santa Cruz in May 2014. The text appears as the foreword to the collection Late in the Day: Poems 2010-2014 (published by PM Press).

Archaeologists Discover 12,000-Year-Old Sewn Clothing in Oregon Caves - GreekReporter.com Archaeologists uncover 12,000-year-old sewn hides, bone needles and artifacts in Oregon caves, revealing Ice Age clothing and culture.

greekreporter.com/2026/02/10/o...

I’m seeing a lot less AI in students’ writing this year. They’re using their own voices, thinking creatively, putting in the work. It’s more heartening than I can describe.

Why don’t all animals use tools? Does tool use = intelligence?

From twigtechnology@bsky.social and my new paper: “Instead of asking what rare and essential gifts allow only certain animals to use tools, we ask: why don’t they all?” static1.squarespace.com/static/5f620...

Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi - Nature A hand stencil painted on a cave wall on a small island off the coast of Sulawesi more than 67,800 years ago suggests a very early occupation of Wallacea.

🧪🏺 WOWWWW
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper (pre-print) out w/ @twigtechnology.bsky.social : Why don’t all animals use tools? If you’re into critters, game theory, cyborgs, tech, and/or the glories of the natural world, do give it a whirl 🐛🐇🛠️🧰

“ Cassandra.”
Eugene Berman, 1942.

apt closing from my last SAPIENS story “What archaeology asks of everyone is an openness to alternate worlds. An understanding that your society, with its ways of working, worshipping, learning, loving—even knowing a dog—is just one permutation of endless human and beyond human possibilities.”

Illustration of a tattoo depicting two deer being attacked by three big cats; two with stripes, one with spots.

Tattoo from the preserved body of a Siberian ice mummy, from the Iron Age Pazyryk culture of the Altai Mountains. Depicting two tigers and a leopard attacking two deer, it shows the sophisticated methods of Pazyryk tattooers #InternationalSnowLeopardDay

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

There are few greater joys than being employed to read stuff like this

In a paper under review @abigaildesmond.bsky.social and I argue that self-directed tool use should be the most common form of novel (and possibly temporary) tool use, because of the immediacy of the feedback and the stability of the self as an environment. Fingers crossed it survives review!

🧪🪮🐼

Louis Pasteur’s scientific discoveries in the 19th century revolutionized medicine and continue to save the lives of millions today On World Rabies Day – which is also the anniversary of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur’s death – a virologist reflects on the achievements of this visionary scientist.

What do you know about Louis Pasteur who developed the first effective rabies vaccine back in 1885?

One of the most brilliant minds and scientists of all time, writes Rodney E. Rohde. Pasteur died on this day in 1995, and #WorldRabiesDay is marked on the anniversary.

buff.ly/56EB92l

Yunxian 2, is that you?! 💀

I’m sure they’re fondly remembering a previous joke

First day of my lecture course on the evolution of human technology, and my students just voted to have a laptop-free class. Sometimes, all is right with the world.

Experimental evidence for the efficacy of transversal hafting of backed segments as arrowheads Backed segments in quartz from the Howiesons Poort industry of Southern Africa (65–60 ka) have been interpreted as tips of arrows. Nevertheless, sever…

Prehistoric stone tools were often hafted, but we only find the lithics not the wood/bone part of tools. So it is not always clear how stones were hafted.

We tested two ways of hafting the same type of arrow tip, shooting into ballistics gel. Very mythbusters!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yes!

Always a pleasure to see hominin graffiti. Tbilisi, Georgia.

78,000-year-old footprints from Neanderthal man, child and toddler discovered on beach in Portugal A Neanderthal trackway discovered in Portugal shows how an adult male and two children hunted for food 78,000 years ago.

"It was early in the morning of a sunny day, with perfect light for checking tracks," Neto de Carvalho told Live Science in an email. 🏺🧪

IZAZ 'Ask Us Anything' Online Forum June 2025 YouTube video by Integrating ZooMS and Zooarchaeology (IZAZ)

Are you kept awake at night, wondering whence your bags of archaeological bone fragments? Is your child ZooMS curious? Check out this mMass-ively cool AMA where we address your pressing proteomic problems. youtu.be/loAgeUuK08g?...

What can we tell about Stone Age strategies by identifying critters’ bones? Join me online tomorrow for an archaeological ZooMS AMA!

True for the individual, and true for evolution.

Super happy to be a panelist at this upcoming ZooMS webinar - join us on June 30 for a fun archaeological AMA!

Delighted to see our paper on the evolutionary history of the CCR5Δ32 deletion published this week in @cellpress.bsky.social. Work led by @ravnkirstine.bsky.social, Leonardo Cobuccio and Rasa Muktupavela, and co-supervised by me and @simorasmu.bsky.social. See 🧵 for main findings...

Amazing, congratulations Evan!

"He vexes my goose-herd": What To Read Next If You Liked the Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir Everybody loves the complaint tablet to Ea-Nasir – the question is, what will you read next, after you’ve finished the original series?

"He takes a pledge from me and vexes my goose-herd."

"The letter you wrote to Menon about Kallikon's money has been eaten by mice."

"We find that 6 jugs of the wine are missing."

What To Read Next If You Liked the Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir

www.thechatner.com/p/he-vexes-m...

Molecular analysis of a hominin mandible from Taiwan reveals the lineage and sex of the individual.

A fossil Pleistocene-age hominin jawbone discovered in Taiwan has now been identified as belonging to a Denisovan, finds a new study in Science.

The results provide direct molecular evidence that Denisovans occupied diverse climates and offer new insights into this hominin lineage. scim.ag/4joSUBh

Laughed out loud reading archaeologists characterized - by a physical anthropologist - as “… the senile playboys of science rooting in the rubbish heaps of antiquity.” Subtitle: If Earnest Hooton is insulting you, you must be cool. From Trigger’s “A History of Archaeological Thought”.

Illustration of bonobos walking and climbing

I could not wait any longer to share the finished illustration of bonobos.
Commissioned by @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social
#SciArt #mammals #apes #primates #art