Guy got a lot of big names in paleoanthropology and archaeology
to comment on his latest Smithsonian piece, “The Great Human
Migration.” You may recognize Tim White and Ofer Bar-Yosef among
the many he’s interviewed. Guy summarizes some major sites and
recent finds, such as the artistic and symbolic nature of early
Homo sapiens seen in the 164,000 years old artifacts from
Pinnacle Point, South Africa and the 77,000 year old shell beads
BlombosCave, also in South Africa. Guy also offers up a physical
comparison of Homo sapiens to other hominids, such as
Neandertals. He reviews both older and current genetic evidence
on the evolution of humans. You should read it if you don’t know
much about paleoanthropology and other disciplines related to
the evolution of modern humans and are interested in the
subject. Guy synthesizes many different fields, from archaeology
to paleontology to genetics, and offers up a pretty succint and
clear review of what know about how modern humans got to where
we are now. PLoS Genetics