Lawn Chair Anthropology

In the Summer of 2019 I worked with some great Vassar undergrads to make virtual endocasts and generate new brain size estimates for the Neandertals from the site of Krapina, which we then publis...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2023/12/22/krapina-endocast-update-open-data-code/

What makes the human brain special, and how did it change throughout our evolutionary history? One way to answer this question by comparing actual brains or MRI scans of living animals. But only ...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2023/11/10/what-do-brain-endocasts-tell-us/

I’m working on a project analyzing infant remains of Homo naledi, a species of human that lived in South Africa around 300,000 years ago. In order to paint a full picture of infancy in this spe...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2023/08/08/did-homo-naledi-have-big-babies/

Each year in my intro bio-anthro class, we start the course by asking how our brains contribute to making us humans such quirky animals. Our first lab assignment in the class uses 3D models of br...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2021/03/03/brain-size-scaling-virtual-lab-activity/

In the latest paper out of the lab (here), my students and I reconstructed the brain endocasts of the Krapina Neandertals. The Krapina rock shelter in Croatia is a remarkable site. Dating to arou...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2021/02/09/latest-from-the-lab-brain-size-at-krapina/

We just kicked off the Spring semester here at Vassar College, and so I’ve got some freshly-updated bio-anthro syllabi hot off the press. This semester, I’m doing my annual introductory class...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2020/01/26/new-decade-new-syllabi/

The Fall semester here at Vassar kicks off next week, and so of course a new fossil discovery is published this week that threatens to upend my course plans and throw my syllabi into disarray. Ha...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2019/08/30/new-old-australopithecus-anamensis-cranium/

It’s Friday night. Our description of the Homo naledi femora (thigh bones) from the Lesedi Chamber is hot off the press. This coincides with the publication of another study (with which I was...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2019/06/26/this-is-how-we-do-it/

StW 573, a hominin skeleton more palatably nicknamed “Little Foot,” made its big debut last week: The skeleton is remarkable in that it is the most complete australopithecine individual ever ...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2017/12/11/the-most-complete-australopithecus-skeleton/

This Fall I’m teaching three courses at Vassar, two in Anthropology and one in Environmental Studies. Syllabi are posted to my Teaching page in case anyone wants to use them – here are the hi...

https://lawnchairanthropology.com/2017/09/03/new-anthropology-syllabi-for-2017/