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Hominins

Mr. Dr. Greg Bole is back to discuss our close human relatives: Hominins! Australopithicus, Homo erectus, Neanderthal, Homo floresiensis, their tool-use, cannibalistic behaviors, and skull-bashing  ways. We’ll look at some name-game-changing new finds In The News, and desperately try to find some decent “caveman” pop culture.

Music: “I’m A African” by Baba Brinkman

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26 Responses

    1. It’s almost like we can talk about whatever we want to talk about! The Internet is amazing!

      Edit: Wait, where did we talk politics, exactly?

  3. I’m rather saddened my favorite 2 cavemanesque references didn’t show. History of the world part 1 has a hilarious beginning of man walkthrough, and also Beer Bad from Buffy

  4. I would like to lodge a formal complaint against this show. Kevin failed to interrogate your awesome guest about his bonifides, as he normally does (I know, he’s been on the show before, but that doesn’t usually stop Kevin). 😉

    I would also like to give a shout out to an important sceptical caveman pop culture reference – Occ the Skeptical Caveman, written, directed and produced by the SGU folks.

    I’ve heard that there will be more Occ the Skeptical Caveman episodes in the future.

        1. I think you’re right to err on the side of caution and skip that movie. Certainly not worth skimming through 1.5 hours of material to find a gag or two that are funny.

  5. Fantastic episode guys! A great guest, a lot of edumacational information and a lot of hilarity: the perfect mix. A perfect example episode to get non-listeners interested, IMHO, including kids, although I guess there was a bit of swearing and discussion of humping things. A instant favourite for me, anyhow.

    The Walking with… Series are just fantastic resources, and it hope they update them in a few years, especially with addition of some Hobbits.

    I know I’ve banged on about it before, but at least here it’s relevant: The Incredible Human Journey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Human_Journey) focuses mostly on the Sapiens end of things, but provides a really good overview of the spread of us hoomins around the globe, our impact on the other Hominins, and how various physical traits arose and how they moved around the globe too. I find it fascinating that there are genetic markers that connect Australian Aborigines with South Americans (I think). It has a great presenter too, and is pretty recent (though I don’t recall if they touch on Hobbits).

  6. I don’t know if anyone here watched Blake’s 7, but it had some Neanderthal-like creatures in S01E12 Deliverance. They didn’t do that much in the episode apart from present a threat to the heroes, but it was nice to see a representation of an aliens some sort – lots of those shows either showed ridiculous rubber aliens or simply assumed that humans lived everywhere. Great series though – wonderful storyline even if the sets were wobbly.

    1. Joe’s acerbic wit reminds me a bit of Kerr Avon’s.
      Blake’s 7 probably has one of the darkest and most caustic series finale’s in sci-fi.

  7. Recent pop culture re: Neanderthal, via Pharyngula – http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/19/neandertals-were-monsters/

    “Danny Vendramini is a man with a vision…but absolutely no knowledge or competence. He has invented out of whole cloth a bizarre hypothesis that Neandertals were super-predators who hunted modern humans for food and sex. To support this weird contention, he builds up a tissue thin set of speculations, all biased towards this idea that Neandertals were giant, hairy brutes who looked like bipedal chimpanzees, and that were intent on raping and eating people.

    If it sounds like the plot for a cheesy SyFy channel horror movie, you shouldn’t be surprised: Vendramini is not a scientist, but he is a “theatre director, TV producer and award-winning film director and scriptwriter“. He has no training in comparative anatomy, ecology, or evolutionary biology, and it shows.”

    1. Thank you, I didn’t know about this blood sucking European Wendigo hypothesis. Watching Vendramini’s video on youtube hurts, mostly from the constant facepalming. An activity, I theorize, which probably gave us Sapiens that flattened face and those flatter eyebrows.

  8. In the news (today!): http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3905527.htm

    They’ve managed to extract DNA from a 400,000yo femur from Spain (previous record was 100,000 years!), discovering that it contains Denisovan DNA (the Siberian guys), not just Sapiens and Neanderthal, meaning “Everybody is bonking everybody else” (gotta love Aussie scientists, especially the ones who work in the field).

    Any comment, Dr Greg? 🙂

  9. Nothing on Clan of the Cave Bear? tsk. 😀 I’d have to go back, it was probably mentioned in Megafuna.

    Granted, I could write a screed on the last book.. to quote Dorothy Parker, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

    Yes, Mrs. Auel, wrap up your otherwise acclaimed series with a steaming hunk of [redacted] that is teeth-gnashingly dull until the very last chapter, whereupon you engage in more character assassinations than a Tarantino movie. -_-

  10. Anyone ever watch the movie, “When women lost their tails?” I found it to be… interesting 🙂 Keep up the good work guys!