Some resources for a current understanding of human evolution

The pbs website has a great set of resources to accompany its 7-part video series on evolution, including some short video clips.  The following clips are pretty elementary, but they contain some good information and thought-provoking statements.  Videos 1 ("Isn't Evolution Just A Theory?"), 3 ("How Do We Know Evolution Happens?"), 5 ("Did Humans Evolve?"), and 7 ("Why Is Evolution Controversial Anyway?") are particularly good, and you should watch all of them for this topic in the course.  Number 5 is most directly relevant to human evolution, of course.  Video 3 has some great current stuff on the evolution of whales, and if you'd like to see a short, really current article by the same scientist featured in that video, see the 21 September issue of Science. 

Recent information on the newest hominid, Homo floresiensis, from Flores Island in Indonesia.  The 1 meter tall critter that people have dubbed "hobbits."

Here are some other fairly recent, very readable articles on human evolution.  Most are non-technical, and several are news articles in a single issue of Science rather than research articles.  Full-text versions of several of them are available on-line through our library:

  1. Shreeve, J.  1999.  Secrets of the Gene.  National Geographic 196: 42-75. (Oct. 1999)
  2. Berger, L.  1998.  Redrawing our family tree?  National Geographic 194: 90-99. (Aug. 1998)
  3. Gore, R.  1997.  Tracking the first of our kind.  National Geographic 192: 92-99 (Sep. 1997)
  4. Zimmer, C.  2001.  After you, Eve.  Natural History 110: 32-35.  (Mar. 2001)
  5. Tattersall, I.  2000.  A hundred years of missing links.  Natural History 109: 62-65. (Dec. 2000)
  6. Diamond, J.  2000.  Threescore and ten.  Natural History 109: 24-35.  (Dec. 2000)
  7. Milner, R.  Portraits of prehistory.  Natural History 104: 44-47.  (Dec. 1995)
  8. Cooper, A., A. Rambaut, and V Macaulay).  Human origins and ancient human DNA.  Science 292: 1655-1656 (1 June 2001)
  9. African origin of modern humans in East Asia: a tale of 12,000 Y chromosomes.  Science 292: 1151-1153 (11 May 2001)
  10. Gibbons, A.  2001.  Modern men trace ancestry to African migrants.  Science 292: 1051-1052.  (11 May 2001)
  11. Cann, R.L.  2001.  Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: retracing the past from the present.  Science 291: 1742-1748.  (2 Mar. 2001)
  12. Stumpf, M.P., and D.B. Goldstein.  2001.  Genealogical and evolutionary inference with the human Y chromosome.  (2 Mar. 2001)
  13. Balter, M.  2001.  Anthropologists duel over modern human origins.  Science 291: 1728-1729. (2 Mar. 2001)
  14. Gibbons, A.  2001.  But did they mate?  Science 291: 1726. (2 Mar. 2001)
  15. Gibbons, A.  2001.  The riddle of coexistence.  Science 291: 1725-1729. (2 Mar. 2001)
  16. Balter, M.  2001.  In search of the first Europeans.  Science 291: 1722-1725. (2 Mar. 2001)
  17. Shipman, P.  2003.  We are all Africans.  American Scientist 91: 496-499. (Nov. - Dec. 2003)