New PalaeoChron publications in PNAS and Current Anthropology

The PalaeoChron team has been hard at work writing up papers concerning some of our project results. In early October our PNAS paper on the Vindija Neanderthals came out. Spearheaded by Thibaut Devièse the paper describes new AMS dates obtained using our hydroxyproline extraction (HYP) which produced much older dates than previously. We also described using ZooMS to find a new Neanderthal bone fragment. The paper was reviewed in PNAS in an article by Jean-Jacques Hublin and featured on the cover of the journal.

In the wake of the Wenner-Gren meeting in Portugal in 2016, co-organised by Mike Petraglia, Katerina Douka and Chris Bae, the journal Current Anthropology has now begun to put early edition online versions of the papers from the meeting. Katerina and Tom have a paper in this edition on new chronometric results from Eurasia, including Bondi Cave (Georgia) and Kostenki 14 (Russia). The Sintra meeting comprised 18 hominin paleontologists, archaeologists, geneticists, and geochronologists, along with the Wenner-Gren Foundation’s outgoing president, Leslie Aiello, and symposium coordinator, Laurie Obbink. The 3 day meeting was an amazing experience for all who participated, with the Wenner-Gren meeting format so suited to discussion and sharing ideas. All who went thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and it is wonderful to see so many good papers now coming out.

Link to the early edition Current Anthropology papers here.

Link to the PNAS paper on Vindija here.

Participants in the symposium “Human Colonization of Asia in the Late Pleistocene.” Front row, from left: Adam Powell, Chris Bae, Martin Sikora, Michael Petraglia, Patrick Roberts, Katerina Harvati, Fabrice Demeter. Middle row: Sue O’Connor, Kelly Graf, María Martinón-Torres, Knut Bretzke, Yuichi Nakazawa, Leslie Aiello. Back row: Robin Dennell, Max Aubert, Alexandra Buzhilova, Tom Higham, Jimbob Blinkhorn, Youping Wang.