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Posts by Adam van Casteren

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Principal Researcher in Human Evolution:South Kensington

Natural History Museum. Apply for Principal Researcher in Human Evolution jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

1 month ago 20 36 0 3

We’re interested in folks applying from all manner of disciplinary backgrounds. Biology, zoology of course. But also computer science, remote sensing, architecture. If you’re keen to work with LiDAR and point clouds, we’d like to hear from you!

1 month ago 6 8 0 1
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Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

My post-doc Charlotte King will be starting her own Minerva research group in September and is looking for PhD students. Click here if you are into experimental biomechanics, apes and hominin evolution.

www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...

1 month ago 14 18 0 0
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We are hiring a POSTDOC on an NIH award to measure inertial effects of (in)active muscle. Please share and re-post widely! Please send expressions of interest to my UML email.

2 months ago 6 10 1 0
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Early hominins from Morocco reveal an African lineage near the root of Homo sapiens Study pinpoints 773,000-year-old fossils with high-resolution magnetostratigraphic dating, illuminating the shared ancestry of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans

🦴🔬 773,000-year-old #fossils from Morocco illuminate the shared ancestry of H. sapiens, Neandertals & Denisovans. Study @nature.com by an intl. team led by J.-J. Hublin, incl. @matthewskinnerphd.bsky.social & P. Gunz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/yxz4kcff & www.nature.com/articles/s41...

3 months ago 33 16 1 1
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🚨Job Alert plz RT!

Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition!

We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals

Open-rank

apply.interfolio.com/178146

4 months ago 56 75 0 1
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Two great biomechanics talks at @primatesocietygb.bsky.social by lab postdocs @savannarhianna.bsky.social and Charlotte King. 👏👏🧗🏼‍♀️🦍🐵🌳

4 months ago 47 9 1 3

@savannarhianna.bsky.social amazing work!

6 months ago 3 0 0 0
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#ESHE2025
Rhianna Drummond-Clarke ‘First documentation and quantification of wild chimpanzee rock climbing’
Camera traps, Issa Valley TZ & Moyen Bafing, Guinea chimps

Rock vs tree climbing: more dynamic movements, biomech diff locomotor modes, reaching further- role of uneven substrates!
Amazing 😍

6 months ago 41 15 1 1

Very excited to receive an ERC Starting Grant to study the earliest archaeological and biomolecular evidence of Homo sapiens in NW Europe

Watch this space for new positions in Bristol in 2026! 🎉

#HorizonEurope #ERCStG

7 months ago 92 19 10 4

I am offering two 4-year PhD positions (fully funded) and a 57 month combined post-doc / project manager position as part of my NWO-Vici grant, which starts in September.

11 months ago 44 33 1 1
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Behavioural diversity in animals threatened by #biodiversity decline. In @science.org, @ammiekalan.bsky.social @uvic.ca & Lydia Luncz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social emphasise the urgent need to develop strategies for preserving animal cultural #behaviour. tinyurl.com/569u66sv & doi.org/10.1126/scie...

1 year ago 31 14 0 0
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Saving the cultural legacy of wild animals Loss of biodiversity threatens the study of tool use and other cultural behaviors in animals

Happy to have a new piece in @science.org with my friend Lydia where we draw attention to the significance of animal material culture for understanding human technical evolution and why we should digitally preserve and protect primate tools and tool use sites. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1 year ago 83 32 0 3
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Why humans have a smaller face than Neanderthals In Homo sapiens, facial growth stops at puberty.

Why #humans have a smaller #face than #Neanderthals: In Homo sapiens, facial growth stops at #puberty. New study in #JHE by @alexandraschuh.bsky.social & an intl. research team, incl. Philipp Gunz, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Sarah Freidline. More: tinyurl.com/ywkvwvej & doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

1 year ago 92 24 5 2
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🚨 Our new paper is out today in Communications Earth & Environment (@commsearth.bsky.social)!! “Modern coastal ecosystems of the American Southeast are shaped by deep-time human-environment interactions” Check it out! 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

1 year ago 9 5 1 0
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Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology

📣🐵 🌿 Our study shows that Gombe chimpanzees act as 'engineers', choosing plant materials to make tools based on specific properties that make them ideal for the job. @runnerape.bsky.social, Susana Carvalho, Deus Mjungu, @ellenschulzk.bsky.social, @adamvanc.bsky.social

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

1 year ago 8 2 0 0
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Chimpanzees understand material properties Wild chimpanzees choose just the right tools for the job, demonstrating a remarkable understanding of material properties

Not just any stick. #Chimpanzees understand material properties and choose just the right #tool for the job. New study in @cp-iscience.bsky.social by an intl. research team led by @runnerape.bsky.social & @adamvanc.bsky.social. @ox.ac.uk More: tinyurl.com/59c2wff4 & doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

1 year ago 15 5 0 0

Authors: @runnerape.bsky.social, Susana Carvalho, Deus Mjungu, @ellenschulzk.bsky.social and @adamvanc.bsky.social. 5/5

1 year ago 0 0 0 0
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🧠 The findings hint that our early ancestors likely had similar material engineering skills. Looking at tool biomechanics may provide a new lens for understanding evolution of technology in hominins! 4/5

1 year ago 1 0 1 0

🌿 Even within the same plant species, chimps target individual plants yielding more flexible material. Bark was especially preferred over twigs/vines due to lower stiffness. These aren't obvious properties - suggests deep understanding of tool functionality. 3/5

1 year ago 1 0 1 0

🔬 The study shows chimps select materials for their termite fishing tools that are more flexible than non-used plant material. This may have a functional reason as flexible tools better navigate the twisting tunnels in termite mounds, possibly allowing for more efficient foraging. 2/5

1 year ago 0 0 1 0
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Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology

Really happy to see this paper out, using field biomechanics we show that wild chimpanzees don't just randomly select plants materials for termite fishing tools – they use a little “folk physics” choosing materials with specific properties! Study in iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful.... 1/5

1 year ago 17 8 1 0
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Human midfacial growth pattern differs from that of Neanderthals and chimpanzees Present-day humans have small and retracted midfaces, while Neanderthals possess large and forwardly projected midfaces. To understand the ontogenetic…

Very happy to share our new paper on human facial development and evolution out today in JHE 🎉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧵👇

1 year ago 15 7 1 0
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Book review – The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History The Wood Age is an eye-opening piece of environmental history that charts how human civilization was built on trees.

This book “The Wood Age” by Roland Ennos might be of interest. inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/11/17/b...

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
The Human Fossil Record: A Digital Resource for Research and Education The Human Fossil Record: A Digital Resource for Research and Education

The Tai Chimpanzee Project is making available microCT scans from their collections on human-fossil-record.org. All proceeds are used to support their mission of conservation and non-invasive research in Tai National Park (taichimpproject.org).

1 year ago 17 17 1 1
Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture - Nature Nature - Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture

I am very happy to share our new paper on the genetics of some of the first modern humans who ever lived in Europe! We sequenced nuclear DNA from 13 specimens from Ranis in Germany, and found that they belonged to at least 6 individuals. www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/n)

1 year ago 276 110 13 17
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Very excited (and a bit nervous) to announce that I will be hiring two Postdocs for my new group(!) in Copenhagen to study the Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA which survives in present-day humans. Retweet will be much appreciated :)

Link for application:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

1 year ago 418 287 9 9
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Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins For much of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, multiple hominin species coexisted in the same regions of eastern and southern Africa. Due to the limitations of the skeletal fossil record, questions regardi...

Excited to share our latest paper, new in Science! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1 year ago 165 58 8 12

We are looking for a 2yr post-doc with experience in experimental biomechanics to research ape locomotion

2 years ago 0 0 0 0
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Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

🚨Job Klaxon🚨

Q: What links biomechanics, human evolution and apes?

A: This 2-year post-doc position available in my new Human and Ape Biomechanics group in the Department of Human Origins @MPI_EVA_Leipzig 👇

www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...

2 years ago 10 6 1 0