Dr. Anthropology

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Portuguese Man Accidentally Finds 82-Foot-Long Dinosaur in His Backyard 10/05/2023

Hi! Dr. Anthropology has recently gotten so many photos and questions from people who have found what they believe are fossils or dinosaur eggs or bones—there are so many fossils in the world! However, it is very difficult to be able to figure out what the fossil might be without seeing it in person. And you need someone who knows a lot about your kind of fossil to really identify it. So, your best bet would be to look for a local archaeology group, historical museum, or science museum with a "bring your fossil" day to try to help you figure out what kind of a fossil you have. Also very important is to document where you found the fossil—without that information, there will not be an opportunity to date the fossil because it is the surrounding dirt and materials that would be able to date your fossil. And, many rocks look like they may have a "face" or other interesting looking configuration, but they are just a rock!

Occasionally, someone does find something incredible! But if you do—and you really think it is something significant—leave it in place, contact your local university, museum staff, or archaeology group and let them know what you found. A man in Portugal found a giant dinosaur in his backyard.

And good luck doing the research to find out about your fossil!

Portuguese Man Accidentally Finds 82-Foot-Long Dinosaur in His Backyard During rennovations, the owner of the property in central Portugal noticed the presence of several fragments of fossilized bones in his yard.

LibGuides: March Mammal Madness: How to Play 03/01/2023

It's on! March Mammal Madness! See the library guide to download the brackets and start playing!

LibGuides: March Mammal Madness: How to Play The official location for March Mammal Madness tournament information and resources! If you're learning, you're winning!

Arma Veirana 2022 Season: Post 1 07/19/2022

What is it like to be a student abroad on a research project? Follow along with HOMER project student blog to find out!

Arma Veirana 2022 Season: Post 1 T- 5 days until we're off! Welcome to the first blog post from the Arma Veirana 2022 Summer season! Our group consists of Dr. Jamie Hodgkin...

03/09/2022

Next week is ASU's Sun Devil Giving Day—a special day of philanthropy! Please consider giving a donation of any size on Thursday, March 17, to benefit the Institute of Human Origins' graduate students—either to a general fund to help students cover research needs or to one of IHO's scholarship funds. Look for a posting next Thursday for the links to donate! And Thank YOU!

Hey everyone! My name is John Murray. I am an IHO affiliated PhD student and  currently collecting data for my dissertation in Mossel Bay, South Africa. I will be posting updates on my travels and research over the next eight weeks so I wanted to introduce myself and my research.

My dissertation focuses on the emergence and evolution of lithic heat treatment technology in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of South Africa. Lithic heat treatment technology is one of the first physically transformative technologies in human evolution where stone raw material was heated by fire to improve its quality for toolmaking. The earliest evidence for lithic heat treatment technology is the heat treatment of a rock called silcrete at Pinnacle Point 13B in South Africa approximately 164,000 years ago. (The last photo is a heat-treated silcrete handaxe that I made after some of my experiments.)

During my trip, I will be analyzing silcrete artifacts from two MSA sites (Pinnacle Point 13B and Pinnacle Point 5-6) to better understand how heat treatment technology varied over nearly 100,000 years. More specifically, I am interested in identifying the process(es) that MSA humans used to heat-treat silcrete (more on this soon), which is a debated topic among researchers. I am excited to explore this with you in more detail over the next few weeks! 03/09/2022

In the field again! IHO graduate students John Murray and Jayde Hirniak are in South Africa to do field and museum work—and they have agreed to take over IHO's Instagram account while they are away! John has posted his first entry at https://www.instagram.com/p/Caw9yaRrr3G/. So go over to IHO's Instagram account at and follow their research journey for the next few months. Jayde will be leaving South Africa and heading to London next to examine materials in museum collections. Enjoy!

Hey everyone! My name is John Murray. I am an IHO affiliated PhD student and currently collecting data for my dissertation in Mossel Bay, South Africa. I will be posting updates on my travels and research over the next eight weeks so I wanted to introduce myself and my research. My dissertation focuses on the emergence and evolution of lithic heat treatment technology in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of South Africa. Lithic heat treatment technology is one of the first physically transformative technologies in human evolution where stone raw material was heated by fire to improve its quality for toolmaking. The earliest evidence for lithic heat treatment technology is the heat treatment of a rock called silcrete at Pinnacle Point 13B in South Africa approximately 164,000 years ago. (The last photo is a heat-treated silcrete handaxe that I made after some of my experiments.) During my trip, I will be analyzing silcrete artifacts from two MSA sites (Pinnacle Point 13B and Pinnacle Point 5-6) to better understand how heat treatment technology varied over nearly 100,000 years. More specifically, I am interested in identifying the process(es) that MSA humans used to heat-treat silcrete (more on this soon), which is a debated topic among researchers. I am excited to explore this with you in more detail over the next few weeks!

10/14/2021

Why is the Lucy Mission named for our favorite fossil?

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