Publications by authors named "Dan Comeskey"
Reevaluating the timing of Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
March 2021
Elucidating when Neanderthal populations disappeared from Eurasia is a key question in paleoanthropology, and Belgium is one of the key regions for studying the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Previous radiocarbon dating placed the Spy Neanderthals among the latest surviving Neanderthals in Northwest Europe with reported dates as young as 23,880 ± 240 B.P.
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- * Researchers studied genome sequences from the Sunghir site, dating back about 34,000 years, to understand the social structures of Upper Paleolithic humans.
- * The results indicated that the social organization of Upper Paleolithic humans was likely similar to that of modern hunter-gatherers, featuring limited kinship within small groups connected to a larger mating network.
Musth in male elephants is an annual period of heightened sexual activity and aggression that is linked to physical, sexual and social maturation. It is mediated by the release of chemical signals such as the pheromone frontalin, which exists in two chiral forms (molecular mirror images, or enantiomers). Here we show that enantiomers of frontalin are released by Asian elephants in a specific ratio that depends on the animal's age and stage of musth, and that different responses are elicited in male and female conspecifics when the ratio alters.
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