Human origins, or paleoanthropology, is a subdiscipline of Physical Anthropology. It is the story of where we come from, and when we came to be, how we came to be, and the study of our evolutionary lineage.
I am very interested in paleoanthropology, and have studied it academically, in my university, and as a private interest. In my university, I pursued my interest in Neanderthals (Neandertals). Specifically, I focused on the Homo sapiens complex in the Levant, present day Israel/Palestine/Syria/Jordan, as this population has been controversial in terms of the archaeological and paleoanthropological record. Specifically, the differences, and similarities between Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens and "Neanderthals". The comparisons often made are between the "Classic", western European Neanderthals and Cro-magnon, gracile Homo sapiens, and these criteria have been applied, without convincing success mind you, to the Levantine AMHS/Neanderthal complex. In a paper, I argued that the two supposed "species" occupied the same space, overlapping in time, in morphological details in the skeletal remains, and especially in the cultural/lithic remains (Mousterian).
In the course of my studies, I have met some of the famous paleoanthropologists, most notably Richard Leakey. I even had the opportunity to ask Dr. Leakey about the function of the 'occipital bun' in Homo erectus and other Hominins.
This page will be organized chronologically, going back to the earliest Hominid ancestors (and possible Hominid ancestors), from Ardipithecus to Australopithecus to Homo, including as many taxa as weebly will allow for pages devoted to them. In terms of taxonomy, I am more of a 'lumper' than a 'splitter', so I tend to favor not to split Homo ergaster into subforms, such as 'rudolfensis', for example.
Photos on this page are from the a variety of websites, a page of citations is on the last page of the site.