Summary

Dr. Scott Williams of NYU talks about transitional fossils, the evolution of different postures and forms of locomotion, old books, and new ideas.

Recommendations

• What to read to learn more: Close Encounters with Humankind by Sang-Hee Lee
• What he’s reading for work:
  • Haile-Selassie, Y., Melillo, S.M., Vazzana, A. et al. A 3.8-million-year-old hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Nature 573, 214–219 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1513-8
  • The Bone Readers: Science and Politics in Human Origins Research by Claudio Tuniz, Richard Gillespie, and Cheryl Jones
• What he’s listening to for fun:
  • Revisionist History
  • We Hate Movies
  • Faculty of Horror
  • The Last Podcast on the Left
• BONUS – That Panda Book: The Giant Panda: A Morphological Study of Evolutionary Mechanisms by D. Dwight Davis
• BONUS – Book he recommended to me later: Strange Case of the Mad Professor: A True Tale Of Endangered Species, Illegal Drugs, And Attempted Murder by Peter Kobel

Reference articles

• Dr. William’s bio
• Williams, Scott & Meyer, Marc & Nalla, Shahed & Nalley, Thierra & Eyre, Jennifer & Prang, Thomas & Bastir, Markus & Schmid, Peter & Churchill, Steven & Berger, Lee & García-Martínez, Daniel. (2019). The Vertebrae, Ribs, and Sternum of Australopithecus sediba. 10.4207/PA.2018.ART113.
• Williams, Scott. (2018). Was the last common ancestor aping a chimp or just monkeying around?. Journal of Human Evolution. 121. 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.04.007.
• Spear, Jeffrey & Williams, Scott. (2018). Scapular breadth is associated with forelimb‐dominated suspensory behavior in Atelidae: Comments on Selby and Lovejoy (2017). American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 167. 10.1002/ajpa.23599.
• Williams, Scott & Bastir, Markus & García-Martínez, Daniel & Meyer, Marc & Nalla, Shahed & Schmid, Peter & Barash, Alon & OISHI, MOTOHARU & Ogihara, Naomichi & Churchill, Steven & Hawks, John & Berger, Lee. (2017). Geometric morphometrics of hominoid thoraces and its bearing for reconstructing the ribcage of H. naledi. AAPA conference paper.
• Meyer, Marc & Williams, Scott. (2017). How did early hominins hold their heads? New evidence on head posture from the australopith cervical spine. AAPA conference paper.
• Meyer, Marc & Williams, Scott & Schmid, Peter & Churchill, Steven & Berger, Lee. (2017). The cervical spine of Australopithecus sediba. Journal of Human Evolution. 104. 32-49. 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.01.001.
• Randolph-Quinney, Patrick & Williams, Scott & Steyn, Maryna & Meyer, Marc & Smilg, Jackie & Churchill, Steven & Odes, Edward & Augustine, Tanya & Tafforeau, Paul & Berger, Lee. (2016). Osteogenic tumour in Australopithecus sediba: Earliest hominin evidence for neoplastic disease. South African Journal of Science. 112. #2015-0470. 10.17159/sajs.2016/20150470.