Proud dad post! Hugh Foley shortlisted for Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets, for his ‘Recent Poems’ michaelmarksawards.org/shortlist/hu...
Rob Foley
@robfoley.bsky.social
Professor of Human Evolution and Fellow of King's College Cambridge. Emeritus, so I now do the research there was never time to do before. Interested in anything evolutionary, from humans to lithics to ecology and stars.
The morphological affinities of the fossil cranium from Kabua, Kenya 🏺🧪 A M Bosman, @ltbuck.bsky.social, @martamlahr.bsky.social, @chrisbstringer.bsky.social, @katharv.bsky.social et al rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... Kabua 1's similarity to derived H. sapiens and date of 64.4 ± 5.4 ka.
ICArCHEB in Portugal has put out a call for proposals for HEIRS (the Hub for Human Evolution Research Synthesis). HEIRS supports collaborative research projects designed to produce syntheses of important issues in the field. A wonderful opportunity - link below heirs.icarehb.com/calls-traini...
Call for Group Synthesis Project 2026 – heirs
heirs.icarehb.com
Okay. This is angering me. First of all, “MAN”!? We’re not in the nineteenth century FFS. There’s a better word and it is “Humans”. And secondly - who the f£&k thought HUMANS only learned to control fire 50,000 years ago???!!! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Man made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests
Groundbreaking find makes compelling case that humans were lighting fires much earlier than originally believed
theguardian.com
It was a wonderful day and so deserved. Very proud!
Marta Mirazon Lahr@martamlahr.bsky.social · 10mo agoToday was the ceremony for new fellows at the #BritishAcademy - it was wonderful 🤩. I am thrilled and so grateful to the colleagues who nominated me, elected me, and the many colleagues, students, friends, our kids & family, & specially Rob 😍 who have so enriched my life and career ❤️
Episode 3 of our Ng'ipalajem video series with Justus Erus Edung, talking about the biggest discovery of his career, Kenyanthropus! Sehemu 3 ya video Ng'ipalajem na Justus Erus Edung anazungumza uguduzi mkuu wa maisha ya kazi yake, Kenyanthropus!
Palaeotrails@palaeotrails.bsky.social · last yr.Justus Erus Edung was only 25 years old when he discovered Kenyanthropus platyops in a team led by Prof. Meave Leakey in 1999. This 3.5 million year old “flat-faced” skull quickly grabbed international headlines and changed the course of human evolution. #fossils #turkana #humanevolution
Episode 2 of our Ng'ipalajem video series showing this summer's research! Today, I show some antelope teeth I'm using to understand paleoenvironments Sehemu 2 wa Ng'ipalajem video inaonyesha utafiti wa kiangazi hiki! Leo naonyesha meno wa nyumbu na swala ambayo natumia kwa kuelewa mazingira ya kale
Palaeotrails@palaeotrails.bsky.social · last yr.Episode 2: Faunal identification with @deadbovids.bsky.social Other than identification, tooth wear pattern can give us exciting insights into faunal diet and palaeoecology.
The joy of sorting LSA lithics from Turkana under the guidance of @robfoley.bsky.social Follow us on Instagram for more www.instagram.com/palaeotrails...
It's a bit late for #FossilFriday but I have to show this lovely young adult Palaeoloxodon (giant elephant) jaw from the new Middle Pleistocene site I'm working at in Turkana, Kenya!
New blog posting, inspired by @robfoley.bsky.social 's witty critique of UK universities The Great University Subsidy Scandal 21percent.org?p=2278 Many of us routinely invite the examiner to lunch or dinner at our homes with other students & postdocs at our expense
In a follow-up to our study on accent mimicry last year, we've found that natives are the best at detecting accent mimicry. People from other English speaking countries were, however, worse at mimicry detection than were native listeners. @robfoley.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
What does the Ng'ipalajem team do? Ng’ipalajem, meaning Ancestors in Turkana, is an ERC-funded project. Led by @martamlahr.bsky.social, the project investigates how the emergence of Homo sapiens is deeply intertwined with Africa’s long-term environmental and ecological history. #humanevolution
Breaking the barriers! Important new paper by Daniel Green and others discovering 18 million years of proteins of East African mammals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature
The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...
nature.com
Talking yesterday evening with @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social at the launch of his new book Invisible Rivals (yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... )
Race, ethnicity don’t match genetic ancestry, according to a large U.S. study www.science.org/content/arti...
Race, ethnicity don’t match genetic ancestry, according to a large U.S. study
Data from the All of Us program confirm what many geneticists have long promoted
science.org
Are we hardwired to fall for autocrats? It’s human nature to trust strongmen, but we’ve also evolved the tools to resist them www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...
Are we hardwired to fall for autocrats?
It’s human nature to trust strongmen, but we’ve also evolved the tools to resist them
theguardian.com
Nearly 50 years since David 'Analytical Archaeology’ Clarke died tragically young. A sunny day seemed the right time to pay a much overdue visit to where he is buried in Great Chesterford. Still much missed - not just for what he would have contributed but as a brilliant, witty and cheerful person.
Our new paper on 3D GM has all the models and script available for others to apply our method. We use it to demonstrate interregional variability of Nubian Levallois cores but it has broader potential for lithic studies #openscience #archaeology #3DGM @icarehb.bsky.social @jmcascalheira.bsky.social
João Cascalheira@jmcascalheira.bsky.social · last yr.📢 We have a new paper out!! Led by the incredible @eshallinan.bsky.social we introduce a novel application of three-dimensional geometric morphometrics (GM) to quantify the shape variability of Nubian Levallois cores. #archaeology #openscience @icarehb.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Excellent thread - the revolution in our understanding of cellular biology, critical for modern medicine, and now tragically impacted by US cuts to NIH funding
Ed Hagen@edhagen.net · last yr.1. What's at risk by disrupting NIH? With only a bit of hyperbole: a mechanistic understanding of life itself, & therefore better treatments for cancer, dementias, autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, birth defects, aging & more 🧪 Notes on a revolution interrupted 🧵
Congratulations to @martamlahr.bsky.social on her News and Views in Nature on Ignacio de la Torre and colleagues' discovery of early bone tools at Olduvai. The site that keeps on giving! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The early origins of bone-tool manufacturing traditions by hominins 1.5 million years ago
Excavations at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, reveal evidence of the systematic use of animal bones as a raw material for prehistoric tools.
nature.com
Thanks so much to Jean Black @yalebooks.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social and @robfoley.bsky.social – would not have been possible without you @darwincollegecam.bsky.social @cambridgeuni.bsky.social @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @engagewcs.bsky.social
Madeleine Milburn Agency @mmagency.bsky.social · last yr.We are so excited to share that @yalepress.bsky.social has acquired the ground-breaking first book, Invisible Rivals, from social scientist @jonathanrgoodman.bsky.social Please follow the link to see the full deal announcement on our website, here: bit.ly/41K8QIa
This morning, some of our researchers took part in a McDonald Institute knapping workshop focused on microlithic technologies with brilliant guidance from expert John Lord! Thanks to @robfoley.bsky.social for organising this opportunity and to @kingscollege.bsky.social for kindly hosting us
In an article for @uk.theconversation.com, @rjmilne.bsky.social and I argue that while the UK's plan to foster innovation through AI is ambitious, it will rely on public trust for success. Yet anyone can claim to be trustworthy: how do we tell who actually is? theconversation.com/government-n...
Government needs to show that its AI plan can be trusted to deal with serious risks when it comes to health data
The use of patient data has been controversial in the past.
theconversation.com
Very nice post from Daniel Nettle, honouring Margo Wilson "..a particularly successful example of how you can bring evolutionary understanding to social science topics and be genuinely constructive" www.danielnettle.eu/2025/01/26/m...
Margo Wilson, and how to do evolutionary human science
In October 2024, I had the great honour of travelling to Hamilton to give the Margo Wilson Memorial Lecture. It was fifteen years since Margo’s death. Preparing the lecture gave me the oppo…
danielnettle.eu
The HEIRS meeting at ICArEHB last week was as enjoyable as it was impressive. A wealth of early career talent (and the occasional older ones!). The development of scientific and quantitative techniques is really transforming human evolutionary studies. Congratulations and thanks to the organisers.
Felix Riede@felixthehauskat.bsky.social · 2y agoRarely have I been to such an inspiring event, meeting old friends and new ones - what an amazing group of people: @ceciliapad.bsky.social @heliosdlbs.bsky.social @smartenwinter.bsky.social @svalver.bsky.social @robfoley.bsky.social @eshallinan.bsky.social @hannesrathmann.bsky.social and many more!
🏺🦣 Very pleased to share the latest chapter from my PhD (with Gonzalo Linares-Matás), “Setbacks in the use of a handaxe: lithic investment in the Early Acheulean” doi.org/10.1007/s125... /1
Setbacks in the use of a handaxe: lithic investment and seasonality in the Early Acheulean - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
From their first appearance in the archaeological record, the varying degree of biface presence in individual assemblages has long been a notable aspect of discussions surrounding the nature of the Ea...
doi.org
Are you studying technological complexity in #archaeology? If so, here is an open call for a Special Issue on 'Technological Complexity & Archaeological Interpretation in the Deep Past' which I am co-editing in JAMT! More information here or contact me! link.springer.com/collections/... - Pls share!
Technological Complexity and Archaeological Interpretation in the Deep Past
Complexity has been both an integral but also heavily debated concept within anthropology and archaeology since the disciplines' professionalization in the ...
link.springer.com