The ripples of modernity: How we can extend paleoanthropology with the extended evolutionary synthesis

Disparate and parallel craniofacial climatic adaptations in native populations of Asia, North America, and South America

Understanding the impact that climate had in shaping cranial variation is critical for inferring the evolutionary mechanisms that played a role in human diversification. Here, we provide a comprehensive study aiming to analyze the association between climate and cranial variation of high latitude populations living in temperate to cold environments of Asia, North America, and South America. For this, we compiled a large morphometric dataset (N = 2633), which was combined with climatic and genomic data. We tested the influence of climate on the facial skeleton, nasal protrusion, and cranial vault and through multiple statistical tests at two geographical scales: intracontinental and intercontinental. We show that populations living in cold areas share a morphological pattern characterized by an increase in nasal height, facial and orbital heights and widths, a decrease in facial protrusion, and larger, longer, and lower cranial vaults. There are also distinctive features; populations from north Asia present the tallest noses, largest faces, and cranial vaults of the whole sample. Nasal breadth dimensions show small values in Asians, large values in South Americans, and non-significant changes in arctic North America. The morphological pattern in populations living at high latitude may be the result of parallel adaptation, as supported by physiological, morphometric, ecological, and genetic explanations, while the differences in magnitude and phenotypic expression could be due to the diverse population histories, severity of climate, and cultural strategies. Overall, our study shows that climate is a relevant factor shaping modern human morphology and it should be considered when studying modern human evolution and diversification.

The central role of the individual in the history of brains

Every species' brain, body and behavior is shaped by the contingencies of their evolutionary history; these exert pressures that change their developmental trajectories. There is, however, another set of contingencies that shape us and other animals: those that occur during a lifetime. In this perspective piece, we show how these two histories are intertwined by focusing on the individual. We suggest that organisms--their brains and behaviors--are not solely the developmental products of genes and neural circuitry but individual centers of action unfolding in time. To unpack this idea, we first emphasize the importance of variation and the central role of the individual in biology. We then go over "errors in time" that we often make when comparing development across species. Next, we reveal how an individual's development is a process rather than a product by presenting a set of case studies. These show developmental trajectories as emerging in the contexts of the "the actual now" and "the presence of the past". Our consideration reveals that individuals are slippery-they are never static; they are a set of on-going, creative activities. In light of this, it seems that taking individual development seriously is essential if we aspire to make meaningful comparisons of neural circuits and behavior within and across species.

Capacities for peace, and war, are old and related to Homo construction of worlds and communities

The capacities required for both peace and war predate 100,000 years ago in the genus Homo are deeply entangled in the modes by which humans physically and perceptually construct their worlds and communities, and may not be sufficiently captured by economic models.

Moving beyond the adaptationist paradigm for human evolution, and why it matters

The Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) was founded 50 years ago when much of the foundation for how we think about human evolution was in place or being put in place, providing the main framework for how we consider our origins today. Here, we will explore historical developments, including early JHE outputs, as they relate to our understanding of the relationship between phenotypic variation and evolutionary process, and use that as a springboard for considering our current understanding of these links as applied to human evolution. We will focus specifically on how the study of variation itself has shifted us away from taxonomic and adaptationist perspectives toward a richer understanding of the processes shaping human evolutionary history, using literature searches and specific test cases to highlight this. We argue that natural selection, gene exchange, genetic drift, and mutation should not be considered individually when considering the production of hominin diversity. In this context, we offer suggestions for future research directions and reflect on this more complex understanding of human evolution and its broader relevance to society. Finally, we end by considering authorship demographics and practices in the last 50 years within JHE and how a shift in these demographics has the potential to reshape the science of human evolution going forward.