• When you tape down your thumb, you’ll get a sense of how hard it would be to do many things if our hands were shaped differently. Even a simple task like placing a straw in a bottle becomes difficult!

Ask An Anthropologist

Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.

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Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.

A hand pulls a orange rope through a tube. Shadows in the background look like another person is doing the same thing from far away

Pull it off

Even very young human children can learn simple games such as working together to pull a board. They can also figure out a fair way to share the rewards from cooperating. This activity may seem simple, but humans are the only animals with the ability and desire to work together and negotiate a fair deal in this way.
Link to When Did Our Brains Get Big?

When Did Our Brains Get Big?

Big brains are one of the features that make us human. Find out when during our evolution our brains got big and why this change occurred.
Two hands holding a straw without using thier thumbs

Thumbs Up

When you tape down your thumb, you’ll get a sense of how hard it would be to do many things if our hands were shaped differently. Even a simple task like placing a straw in a bottle becomes difficult!
LInk to All About DNA

Life is Spelled A, T, C, G

Life is complex and diverse but comes down to four little letters. The central code that makes all life on earth possible is found in a tiny molecule known as DNA.