Nicola Jones

The world all seems a bit crazy right now with Trump trying to take over Venezuela... as an anecdote to global politics, here's a story about poison arrows :)  Paleolithic people were smart.  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00051-8

 The warming planet is muddling ice core records, sinking meteorites out of sight, and threatening archaeological discoveries. My story for Yale E360 https://e360.yale.edu/features/glacier-melt-ice-cores-artifacts-meteorites

Here's a quirky story for Nature about how our burning of fossil fuels has 'cancelled out' the spike in C-14 from nuclear weapons testing in the 50s and 60s. That might sound like a good thing, but it's actually causing havoc for a couple of valuable carbon dating techniques used to date everything from poached ivory to forged antiques to murder victim remains. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02057-4

A turbulent year: from the storm on the Capitol to wildfires, racial tensions, and more. My look at the year through the eyes of anthropology for SAPIENS magazine... https://www.sapiens.org/news/anthropology-2021/

If you have seen The Dig on Netflix (a great movie!), check out this amazing piece about the archaeology of the site. I had the great pleasure of commissioning and editing this one for SAPIENS. https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/story-sutton-hoo/

My review of the year, as seen through the eyes of anthropology, for SAPIENS magazine. https://www.sapiens.org/news/anthropology-2020/ At the start of 2020, the Doomsday Clock was set at just 100 seconds to midnight (the closest to “doom” it has ever been) thanks to the twin threats of nuclear war and climate change, compounded by eroding international political infrastructure and the use of communication technologies to misinform the public. I t remains to be seen if humanity will harness these moments of turmoil—along with the global upheaval created by the pandemic—to carve out a better world.

Geeks, mark the date on your calendar: this summer researchers are releasing new calibration curves for radiocarbon dating. For people like me, along with many archaeologists and paleoecologists, this is exciting news! I can't remember when I first stumbled upon this piece of information... back when doing some other story touching on radiocarbon dating I guess. But I was intrigued by the idea: radiocarbon dating needs to be calibrated to match up with calendar dates, and this gets redone every 5-10 years or so as the science advances. My story for Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01499-y There is soooo much more interesting backstory to radiocarbon calibration. My favourite detail that didn't make it into this story for space: for the very first calibration curve drawn up in the 1960s, the researchers had to "connect the dots" of the datapoints by hand, lacking adequate computer models and stats to do it for them. They freehanded all the wiggl...

Fragments of a hominin skull add to the sparse collection from our obscure cousins.  I dug up these unpublished results in a conference abstract, and reported on it for Sapiens. https://www.sapiens.org/biology/denisovan-skull-found/

One scholar has found in the humble, rusty beer can a trusty time capsule. I met David Maxwell at his booth at an archaeology conference, and profiled him for Sapiens. https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/beer-can-archaeology/

 A company began diamond mining at an extraordinary site in South Africa with 2.3 million years of human history. Quick action by archaeologists has led to a court decision protecting the site.  https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/canteen-kopje-saved/

The 18th- and 19th-century fur trade wiped out British Columbia’s sea otter population. The sea otter’s successful recovery today has led to a decline in shellfish in areas where the otters thrive, causing disputes between conservationists and fishermen. My story in Sapiens, the anthropology magazine.  https://www.sapiens.org/culture/sustainable-fishing/