Jim Ahern

Associate Professor

Anthropology Building Room 208b

Spring 2006 Office Hours: MWF 1-2
Tel: 307-766-4911
email: jahern@uwyo.edu
Dept. 3431, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, WY 82071
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Research Statement

The main questions that drive my research are: "What do we really know?" and "What can the fossil record really tell us?" In other words, I am interested in tackling long-held assumptions and narrowing the possible explanations that we can derive from our limited dataset without overstatement. For example, paleoanthropologists have long assumed that we can determine whether or not a fossil ape was a biped based upon the position of the foramen magnum (literally "big hole") on the bottom of the skull. The conventional wisdom went, "bipeds have foramina magna that are toward the front, while non-bipeds have foramina magna that are toward the back." Although this was useful for distinguishing living apes and humans, which are very different, what about early hominids? Many of these turn out to fall in between "toward the front" and "toward the back", in terms of foramen magnum position. By documenting the variation of foramen magnum position in living apes and humans as well as early hominids (Ahern, 2005), we get a much better understanding of how much overlap there exists among bipeds and non-bipeds. Some fossils can confidently be classified as either bipeds or non-bipeds based on foramen magnum position, but some cannot. Following the same theme of "What do we really know?," I am interested in trying to better understand small samples of fragmentary fossils. These make up most of the hominid fossil record and, unfortunately, are prone to both sample bias and overinterpretation. The former has been the focus of my past work in this area (Ahern et al., 2002; Ahern & Smith, 2004), while the latter is the focus of much of my current research (Ahern, in press).

I do much of my work in Central Europe and, specifically, in Croatia, thanks to the important Krapina and Vindija fossils (Smith & Ahern, 1994; Ahern et al., 2002, 2004; Jankovic et al., 2006), a number of unexcavated Paleolithic sites, and, most importantly, great colleagues. My graduate advisors, Fred Smith and Milford Wolpoff encouraged me to work in Croatia. Currently, students and I are participating in excavations at the Paleolithic site, Zala Cave, under the direction of Ivor Karavanic of the University of Zagreb. Students and I also are engaged in collaborative research with Dr. Karavanic as well as colleagues from the Institute for Anthropological Research and the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

For media coverage of research and teaching go here.

Publications

Kesterke M and Ahern JCM. 2007. Is the late Neandertal mandibular sample from Vindija Cave (Croatia) biased? Collegium Antropologicum. 31: 315-319.

Karavanic I, Ahern JCM, Sosic R, and Vukosavljevic N. 2007. Pecina Zala. Hrvatski Arheoloski Godisnjak. 3/2006: 213-216.

Ahern JCM. 2006. Variation within the Krapina frontal sample and a descriptive note on the newly associated frontal specimen, Kr 27-28. Periodicum Biologorum. 108 (3): 289-297. [Republished in: D. Frayer, A. Mann, and J. Monge (eds.). 2007. New Perspectives on the Krapina Neandertals. Zagreb: Hrvatski Prirodoslovni Muzej] (pdf)

Wolpoff MH, Hawks J, Senut B, Pickford M, and Ahern JCM. 2006. An ape or the ape? Is Toumaï TM 266 a hominid? PaleoAnthropology. 2006: 36-50. (link)

Jankovic I, Karavanic I, Ahern JCM, Brajkovic, Lenardic JM, and Smith FH. 2006. Vindija Cave and the modern peopling of Europe. Collegium Antropologicum. 30: 457-466. (pdf)

Ahern JCM. 2006. Non-metric variation in recent humans as a model for understanding Neandertal - early modern human differences: Just how 'unique' are Neandertal unique traits? In Harvati K & Harrison T (Eds.): Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives. New York: Kluwer. (pdf)

Ahern JCM. 2005. Hominid Fossils: An Interactive Atlas. Produced with Science Technologies. San Francisco: Wadsworth. ISBN 0534638414.

Ahern JCM, Hawks JD, & Lee S-H. 2005. Neandertal taxonomy reconsidered . . . again. Journal of Human Evolution. 48: 647-652. (pdf)

Ahern JCM. 2005. Foramen magnum position variation in Pan troglodytes, Plio-Pleistocene hominids, and recent Homo sapiens: implications for recognizing the earliest hominids. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 127: 267-276. (pdf)

Ahern JCM & Smith FH. 2005. Aspects of supraorbital torus morphology in the Le Moustier 1 adolescent Neandertal. In Ullrich H (Ed.): The Neandertal Adolescent Le Moustier 1 - New Aspects, New Results. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Ahern JCM & Smith FH. 2004. Adolescent archaics or adult moderns? Le Moustier 1 as a model for estimating the age at death of fragmentary supraorbital fossils in the modern human origins debate. Homo: The Journal of Comparative Human Biology. 55: 1-19. (pdf)

Ahern JCM, Karavanic I, Paunovic M, Jankovic I, & Smith FH. 2004. New discoveries and interpretations of fossil hominids and artifacts from Vindija Cave, Croatia. Journal of Human Evolution. 46: 25-65. (pdf)

Ahern JCM, Lee S-H, & Hawks JD. 2002. The late Neandertal supraorbital fossils from Vindija Cave, Croatia: A biased sample? Journal of Human Evolution. 43:419-432. (pdf)

Ahern JCM. 1998. "Underestimating intraspecific variation: the problem with excluding Sts 19 from Australopithecus africanus." American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 105:461-480. (pdf)

Ahern JCM. 1998. Late Pleistocene Frontals of the Hrvatsko Zagorje: An Analysis of Intrapopulational Variation in South Central European Neandertals. Ph.D. thesis. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

Ahern JCM & Klausmeyer J. 1996. "Some mighty big footprints . . ." The Display Case: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Exhibit Museum. 9(4):6.

Smith FH & Ahern JC. 1994. Additional cranial remains from Vindija Cave, Croatia." American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 93:275-280. (pdf)

Ahern JC. 1993. The Transitional Nature of the Late Neandertal Mandibles from Vindija Cave, Croatia. M.A. thesis. Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University. (Abstract)

Ahern JC, Milstead R, Rehusch T, Venator NJ, & Yunginger J. 1991. Roy Chapman Andrews: Born Under a Lucky Star. Beloit, WI: The Board of Trustees of Beloit College.

Published Abstracts

Foster AD, Ahern JCM, Meyer CRF. 2007. Midfacial intermediacy in post-contact Amerindian skeletal samples and European-Amerindian admixture. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 44. Kesterke M, Havill L, Ahern JCM. 2007. Heritability of subtrochanteric femoral shape (platymeric index): Implications for human postcranial variation and evolution. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 44. Foster AD, Meyer CR, Slaus M., Ahern JCM, Gill GW. 2006. Midfacial and femoral variation in a 9th century Croatian population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 42. Smith FH, Ahern JCM. 2006. Problems with species identification in the human fossil record with special emphasis on the Neandertal question. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 42. Ahern JCM, Willson G, Gill GW. 2005. Midfacial variation in recent human, Zhoukoudian Upper Cave, and Paleoindian crania. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 40:63. [PDF: Abstract] Kesterke M, Ahern JCM, Lee S-H, and Hawks J. 2005. Is the Vindija late Neandertal mandibular sample biased? American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 40:129. [PDF: Abstract] Hofbauer A, Ahern JCM, & Lee S-H. 2003. "Craniofacial remodeling during adulthood: the supraorbital region." Presented at the 2003 Annual Meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (supplement). 36:115. [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JCM & McAllister S. 2003. "Can foramen magnum position be used to distinguish hominids and apes?" Presented at the 2003 Annual Meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (supplement). 36:57. [PDF: Abstract]
Ahern JCM & Smith FH. 2002. "Approximate age at death of fragmentary fossils in the modern human origins debate." Presented at the 2002 Annual Meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (supplement). 34:35-36. [PDF: Abstract]

Ahern JCM. 2001. "Your Species or Mine? Blurred species definitions in the Neandertal debate." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 32:30. [PDF: Abstract]

Ahern JCM. 2000. "Neandertal frontals from Croatia: new reconstructions and new specimens." American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 28:92. [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JCM. 1999. "New perspectives on the Krapina frontal sample and supraorbital change in late Pleistocene south-central Europe." Presented at Krapina: 1899 – 1999, Zagreb, Croatia. [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JCM. 1999. "Computational methods for addressing age and sex sample bias: a south-central European test case." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 27:81-82. [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JCM, Hawks JD, & Lee S-H. 1998. "Patterns of variation within two samples of south-central European Neandertals." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 26:61-62. [with J. Hawks and S. Lee] [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JCM. 1996. "Underestimating intraspecific variation: the problem with excluding Sts 19 from Australopithecus africanus." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 24:58. [PDF: Abstract] Ahern JC & Smith FH. 1993. "The transitional nature of the late Neandertal mandibles from Vindija Cave, Croatia." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Supplement). 16:47. [PDF: Abstract]

2005 Zala Cave (Croatia) excavation. Rajna Sosic and Jim Ahern finally find the geotextile marking the bottom of the backfill from earlier excavations.