Beyond Stones & Bones

The new science of the brain and DNA is rewriting the history of human origins.

By Sharon Begley, Newsweek

Unlike teeth and skulls and other bones, hair is no match for the pitiless ravages of weather, geologic upheaval and time. So although skulls from millions of years ago testify to the increase in brain size as one species of human ancestor evolved into the next, and although the architecture of spine and hips shows when our ancestors first stood erect, the fossil record is silent on when they fully lost their body hair and replaced it with clothing. Which makes it fortunate that evolutionary anthropologist Mark Stoneking thought of lice.

If you had asked paleoanthropologists a generation ago what lice DNA might reveal about how we became human, they would have laughed you out of the room. But research into our origins and evolution has come a long way....

Read full story in Newsweek.