Philippa Kaur

Modern humans who have inherited genetic variants related to circadian rhythms from extinct hominins are more likely to be morning people

Humans

15 February 2023

By Carissa Wong
Genetics may explain why some of us find mornings easier than othersoatawa/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Genetic variants that some people have inherited from their Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors may increase the odds that they are morning rather than evening people.
“This was really exciting to us, and not expected,” says Tony Capra at the University of California, San Fransisco. “Neanderthals and Denisovans passed on DNA that increased our morningness, and this has been retained in modern human populations.”
Following a split from our common ancestor with archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Denisovans around … More

People in romantic relationships in 45 countries were asked how strongly they agreed with statements such as “just seeing my partner excites me”

Humans

14 February 2023

By Alice Klein
Research into love may help us understand the emotion and increase understanding between culturesKathrin Ziegler/Digital Vision/Getty Images
People in relationships report being more in love if they live in a country with high living standards, greater gender equality and a community‑centred culture.
To find out how experiences of love differ, Piotr Sorokowski at the University of Wrocław, Poland, and his colleagues surveyed 9474 adults in any form of romantic relationship across six continents.
The participants were given 45 statements, such as “just seeing my partner excites me”, and were asked how strongly … More

In the first study to look at the evolution of hair types, researchers found tightly coiled hair provides a trade-off of shielding the head from the sun while minimising unwanted insulating

Humans

14 February 2023

By Michael Le Page
Hair type has previously been studied by researchers in fields such as cosmetics and forensics, but not from an evolutionary perspectiveMireya Acierto/Getty Images
Hair that is tightly coiled offers the best protection against the sun’s potentially damaging rays, which could explain why this trait evolved in early humans in Africa and straighter hair emerged as some humans moved into cooler areas.
It has long been suggested that the reason our body hair became so fine that it is sometimes barely visible, while our scalp hair remained thick, is to prevent our heads … More

Stone tools discovered in Kenya are the oldest Oldowan-type implements found, dating back at least 2.6 million years, and they may have been made by our relative Paranthropus

Humans

9 February 2023

By Michael Marshall
Reconstruction of Paranthropus, an early hominin whose teeth were found alongside stone tools at Nyayanga, KenyaELISABETH DAYNES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A set of stone tools found in Kenya is the oldest of its kind, and one of the oldest known to have been made by ancient hominins. The find adds to the evidence for widespread tool use relatively early in human evolution.
The artefacts were found with two teeth belonging to hominins called Paranthropus. They weren’t thought to make tools because their teeth were well-suited to chewing food, but the new find suggests they actually did make and use stone tools.
The finds come from Nyayanga on the north-eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya. Tom Plummer at Queens College, City University of New York first learned of them more than 20 years ago, when he was working at another archaeological dig nearby. There, team member Blasto Onyango at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi mentioned a different site with similar tools. “We surveyed,” says Plummer, “we saw some material on the surface”, but it took until 2015 to begin full excavations.Advertisement
The team has since recovered 330 stone artefacts. They include the heavy cores of pebbles, used for pounding, and sharp cutting flakes that had been removed from them. The tools are a type known as Oldowan, named for Oldupai gorge in Tanzania where the first examples were found.
Based on analyses of the sediments in which the Nyayanga tools were found, and the types of fossils found with them, the team estimates they are between just over 3 million and 2.6 million years old. “We think it’s in the older end of that range,” says Plummer. This would make them the oldest Oldowan tools on record. Previously, the oldest known examples were those from Ledi-Geraru in Ethiopia, which are from 2.6 million years ago.
The Nyayanga tools were used to process a variety of foods, says Rahab Kinyanjui, also at the National Museums of Kenya. The team found bones of hippopotamus-like animals, some of which had cut marks on them, suggesting the tools were used for butchery. The heavier implements were also used to pound plant materials like tubers and fruit.
Early Oldowan stone tools from Nyayanga, KenyaT.W. Plummer, J.S. Oliver, and E. M. Finestone, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project
Finding evidence of Oldowan tool use this early in Kenya, and 1300km from Ledi-Geraru in Ethiopia, suggests stone tool use was already widespread, says Plummer. In line with this, stone tools have been found in Algeria from 2.4 million years ago.
The use of such implements is primarily associated with the Homo genus, which includes our own species Homo sapiens, as well as older ones like Homo erectus. The oldest purported Homo remains are 2.8 million years old, but none have been found at Nyayanga. The only hominin remains there so far are of Paranthropus.
Paranthropus lived alongside other hominins, including Homo, for over a million years. However, it is generally thought that they have no living descendants. Compared with other hominins from the same time, they looked less like us: in particular, they had very large teeth, perhaps for grinding up tough plant foods.
“The thing about Paranthropus is they’ve got a really specialised anatomy,” says Plummer. “They’ve got the biggest jaws and teeth of any primate that ever lived, for their weight.” He says it is unlikely that a tool-using animal would need such powerful chewing apparatus. Nevertheless, it is the only hominin found at Nyayanga so far, so he says it is worth seriously considering that Paranthropus made and used the tools.
Others are less hesitant. “People are very shy about saying that it was not Homo something, Homo habilis or whatever, making tools,” says Margherita Mussi of the Italo-Spanish Archaeological Mission at Melka Kunture and Balchit, based in Rome. She points out that several modern primates sometimes make crude stone tools, including chimpanzees and various monkeys. “So why not a Paranthropus?”

If that is true, it would fit with other evidence that species of Homo were not the only hominins that made stone tools. The oldest known stone tools of any kind, at 3.3 million years old, are from Lomekwi in Kenya. They are cruder than Oldowan versions and were made in a different way: by hitting rocks on the ground, rather than by hitting a rock held in the hand.
“We have no genus Homo at that time,” says Sonia Harmand at Stony Brook University in New York, one of the discoverers of the Lomekwi tools. “We already know that the first stone tools were probably not made by Homo.” Australopithecus species are likely candidates.
For the later Nyayanga tools, there were probably late Australopithecus, early Paranthropus and early Homo in the region. “We have to imagine it’s all these species probably sharing the same territory or the same environment at the same time,” says Harmand.
Studies like these suggest tool use goes back further than we thought, says Plummer. “We’re going to be pushing tool use further back in time,” he says. Furthermore, “tool use was more important earlier on than we realised”.
In line with this, Mussi and her colleagues showed last month that some hominins were making obsidian tools in organised “workshops” 1.2 million years ago, 500,000 years earlier than thought. “I think that we are systematically under-evaluating hominins,” says Mussi.

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In Marvel’s Midnight Suns, you are in charge of a team of superheroes who fight villains but also hang out. Who wouldn’t want to go fishing with Spider-Man or play video games with Wolverine, asks Jacob Aron

Humans

8 February 2023

By Jacob Aron
Try explaining Doctor Strange’s powers in terms of science2K Games
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Firaxis Games
PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series S/X, Nintendo Switch
WHILE we wait for a rash of new games to arrive (see my previous column), I have been mopping up a few from last year that I hadn’t yet managed to finish.
The one that has been occupying most of my time is Marvel’s Midnight Suns, which puts you in charge of a team of famous superheroes. You play as a new character … More

New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss

Humans

8 February 2023

Disney
Watch
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania stars Paul Rudd (pictured above) as petty thief-turned-Avenger Scott Lang in a new Marvel movie. Set in the Quantum Realm, Lang faces Kang the Conqueror. On general release 17 February.

Read
This Won’t Hurt says Marieke Bigg, tongue firmly in cheek, as she explains how medicine fails women, from research to diagnosis and treatment. Today’s landscape, she argues, was designed for men. On sale from 16 February.

Visit
Unlocking the mysteries of the heart is a talk by Sian Harding based on her book The Exquisite Machine. … More

Wood from a burial chamber in modern Turkey reveals there was a sudden severe drought around the time Hittite cities were abandoned 3000 years ago

Humans

8 February 2023

By Clare Wilson
A burial mound in Gordion, an archaeological site in Turkey, which was the source of wood samples that gave a record of the climate centuries beforeJohn Marston
A three-year-drought may have led to the fall of the Hittite empire in the Middle East 3000 years ago.
The finding comes from analysing timber used to make the burial chamber of a later ruler, who may have been the father of King Midas, referred to in Greek legends.
The sudden drought “would have undoubtedly caused mass problems with food provision. That would have affected the tax base of the empire pretty dramatically,” says Sturt Manning at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.Advertisement
The Hittite empire, which encompassed most of what is now Turkey and lasted nearly five centuries, was one of the major geopolitical forces of the ancient world, with a mastery of ironwork, a cuneiform writing system and an army that could take on neighbouring Egypt.
Ancient texts and archaeological discoveries suggest that around 1200 BC, cities began being abandoned and the empire splintered into independent states that were later overwhelmed by Assyrians from the east.
Several causes have been proposed, including disease, famine, a centuries-long shift to a drier climate, as well as earlier invasions by mysterious groups named “Sea Peoples” in Egyptian texts.
Now, Manning’s team has found evidence of a sharp and severe drought from a huge chamber tomb built in the city of Gordion in 748 BC. As the tomb’s mound is much bigger than others nearby, and was made about the time the local King Midas took the throne, some archaeologists say it could have been made for Midas’s father, the previous ruler – although nothing to identify the occupant remains.
Wood sample showing reduced growth for three consecutive yearsBrita Lorentzen
Clues to the fall of the Hittites, centuries earlier, come from the juniper logs making up the burial chamber. The logs were taken from 18 trees, which were growing from the period 1775 to 748 BC.
Less rainfall means less tree growth, which shows up as narrower gaps between tree rings. The logs show there were 80 instances of two or more consecutive years with low rainfall, and one of these was the three years from 1198 to 1196 BC – just when Hittite cities started being abandoned.
This was supported by another kind of test, measuring the ratio of different forms of carbon from samples of the wood. This shows gradually increasing dryness of the atmosphere between 1300 and 1200 BC, then spikes of dryness from 1222 to 1195 BC.
“Most traditional societies had some storage that would have helped them through one bad harvest,” says Manning. “By the time you get to a third one in a row, it’s become a crisis.”
Alan Greaves at the University of Liverpool in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the research, says the results shed new light on the climate changes at the time. “How do you pay for soldiers, how do you pay for artisans to make things?” he says. “A short, sharp drought would be enough to topple a very centralised state based heavily on grain and the gathering in and distribution of agricultural goods.”

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