Paleo Round-Up - April 17 2008

It's been a hectic week, with not nearly enough time to post about all sorts of neat paleo news. In the interest of time, here's a brief run-down of good stories you should absolutely check out:

• John Hawks discusses reports that the type fossil of Homo floresiensis might show evidence of dental work, which would argue strongly against it representing an 18ky fossil, let alone another species. In another post, he also addresses a recent paper that argues that the discovery that Neanderthals had a modern FOXP2 might be due to contamination.
• Alex offers some thoughts about the discovery of whale-bone tools in the Magdalenian deposits of Isturitz, located some 50-60km inland. It appears the whale bone was procured from beached carcasses, and that there were well developed exchange pathways between the Atlantic coast and the foothills of the Pyrenees.
• ArchaeoBlog presents a critical evaluation of a new paper by Braun et al. on the attrition of stone tools during carcass-processing tasks, and whether this leaves diagnostic traces on the bones themselves. The post is further informed by some of his own experimental work as a grad student (I especially enjoyed the "Hurry! The hyenas are at the top of the hill over there!" quote!).
• Martin also talks about the new FOXP2 study, as well as about new claims about the different vocal capacities of Neanderthals and modern humans, based on work by Robert McCarthy.
• Kambiz rips into the recent paper on diminutive humans from Palau published by berger and colleagues and assesses some of the claims presented by Rex Dalton on that case in a recent note in Nature.
• Finally, on a non-paleo note, if you like your rock brawny yet twangy, and if you live in the greater Montreal area, you most certainly should find yourself at Foufs next Tuesday, April 22, when the excellent Yesterday's Ring will be opening for Lucero. Good times to be had by all... punch and pie.