Thomas Püschel

In our latest paper we argue that brain expansion 🧠 in hominins was primarily driven by within-species dynamics, with an accelerating trend in recent lineages! 📈 Available here 👉🏼 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @oxford-anthro.bsky.social

#Outreach It is happening today: talk about The Nakali Project and how we do fieldwork in Kenya 🇰🇪 Jornades Eurepees de Patrimoni ⏰ 11:45 h 📍 Museu de l'ICP C/ Escola Industrial 23, Sabadell @ICP_MCrusafont @gencat #BPpostdoc --- @leakeyfoundation.org #LOrealUNESCO_FWIS

www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts...

We discussed our paper on why some chimp moms carry their dead infants, sometimes for months in @theconversation.com theconversation.com/why-do-some-... @oxford-anthro.bsky.social

a-z-animals.com/blog/some-ch...

Research by Prof Püschel Tutorial Fellow in Human Sciences finds that strong bond between chimpanzee mothers and their offspring drives them to continue carrying their dead infant and the cause of infant’s death is most consistent explanation for how long it's carried bit.ly/4hFTsod #research

Chimpanzee and bonobo mothers have been observed carrying their dead infants for months. New research from @oxford-anthro.bsky.social suggests that the strength of the mother-infant bond and how the infant died may help explain why ⬇️ https://bit.ly/3VjfTqy

Why do some chimpanzee mothers carry their dead infants for months? New study by doctoral candidate Reece Hammond & @tpuschel.bsky.social finds that strong maternal bonds and cause death provides the most consistent explanation. www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/articles/why...

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09... why do chimpanzee mothers carry their dead infants ?

One of the most-discussed PNAS articles on Reddit last month was “Competing models of hominin body size evolution.” Explore the article: https://ow.ly/KU4350ZwaR5

So proud of @rachel-hurwitz.bsky.social for publishing her 1st PhD chapter 💪 check it out! It’s a really cool review on how can extant primates can help us to identify tool use in the past 🦴🙂

Check out our new paper on Pliobates! Really cool fossil and results 💪🦴 congrats to all the team 😀 rdcu.be/fuc8u 🐒 led by @julsam.bsky.social

Paper alert👏🤩 Our work on the distal humerus of Pliobates was just published in JME. Thanks and congrats also to Ambra Figueroa-Torrejón, @tpuschel.bsky.social, @a-urciuoli.bsky.social, S Almécija, G Raventós-Izard and DM Alba. Featuring lovely artwork by @gamarraptor.bsky.social! rdcu.be/fuc8u

www.newscientist.com/article/2533...

www.quantamagazine.org/why-am-i-lef...

Hominins got larger over time, according to an analysis of 386 specimens across 21 taxa. There’s strong evidence for a marked body mass increase for all late Homo species, except Homo habilis. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/LopK50Zh9S6

phys.org/news/2026-06...

www.discovermagazine.com/human-ancest...

www.reading.ac.uk/news/2026/Re...

Loved being part of this study! We investigated how body size changed through time in human evolution, finding a moderate general increase among all hominins and a marked jump in later Homo. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @pnas.org @ox.ac.uk @oxford-anthro.bsky.social @uniofreading.bsky.social

For this week's #PalEvo lecture Dr @tpuschel.bsky.social talks about his latest research into how bipedalism and brain expansion explain human handedness 👋 Wednesday 27 May 2026, 4pm Pauling Centre, 58a Banbury Road www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/event/bipeda...

Never thought I’d be able to say I was featured on a podcast but here we are! Thanks @tpuschel.bsky.social for trusting me to discuss our research! open.spotify.com/episode/13W8...

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/w...

90% of people are right-handed, and no other primate species comes close to this level of hand preference. A new Oxford-led study suggests the reason may lie in two defining features of human evolution: walking on two legs and the expansion of the human brain. More info ⬇️ https://bit.ly/42Cbvnc

We use data from ~2,000 individuals and 41 species to show that factors such as encephalization and bipedalism explain why at population level we are so predominantly right-handed (no other primate species shows it this strongly) www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-05... @oxford-anthro.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk

Happy to see the press release for our new paper on handedness 🙌 www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-05...

A change to the start time, these special lectures will now start earlier at 3pm on Weds 20 May. @dylangaffneynz.bsky.social @tpuschel.bsky.social @oxford-anthro.bsky.social

New paper alert! In this Current Biology paper led by Hassan Al Razi, we show that chimpanzees in Rwanda adjust nest construction with weather conditions. @ox.ac.uk @oxford-anthro.bsky.social @oxfordhumsci.bsky.social @ceb-uwa.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Super excited to have this paper about human right-handedness out with @plosbiology.org

Why do humans exhibit such a striking right-hand preference? @tpuschel.bsky.social &co study 41 anthropoid species, revealing #Homosapiens as an evolutionary outlier & identifying #bipedalism & #brain expansion as likely drivers of human lateralization @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ufOvWJ

Why do humans exhibit such a striking right-hand preference? @tpuschel.bsky.social &co study 41 anthropoid species, revealing #Homosapiens as an evolutionary outlier & identifying #bipedalism & #brain expansion as likely drivers of human lateralization @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ufOvWJ

Thrilled this paper is out! We describe the rich vertebrate fauna from Lomekwi, identifying 85 taxa. During the time of Kenyanthropus, there were megaherbivores 🦒🦛🐘, numerous artiodactyls, diverse carnivores, giant crocodiles, and multiple primates 
👉 authors.elsevier.com/c/1mHna3ic-F...

#ESHE2025 Thomas Puschel ‘The evolutionary singularity of human handedness’ Is human handedness exceptional? 87% R handed. Study: 2000 ind fr 41 primate spp ONLY HUMANS have an outstanding handedness bias! Increase during human evolution No existing hypothesis best explains findings

The perks of having another palaeontologist in the family: my younger brother is leading this cool fieldwork near Santiago and of course I had to join him 🪏🪨⛏️🦴

While it is often believed early #primates dispersed and radiated in warm tropical forests, new evidence suggest they may have occupied arid, cold and temperate regions too! 🦧🦍🐒🧪 #science #primatology #BioAnth doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

'We’ve long assumed that primates evolved in tropical forests because that’s where most of them live today. But fossil & climate evidence tells a different story...' 🐒NEW research @tpuschel.bsky.social ‪ @oxford-anthro.bsky.social ‬& @uniofreading.bsky.social www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/article/earl...

Early primates evolved in cold, seasonal climates, not warm tropical forests - new research by our Associate Professor in Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr Thomas Püschel, and collaborators ‪@uniofreading.bsky.social‬ challenges our assumptions about where primates originated: ‪https://shorturl.at/3AnbC

Fossil and environmental data indicate that early primates evolved in cold, seasonal climates in North America, challenging the long-standing view that they originated in tropical forests. doi.org/g9v72t

🌍❄️ New paper out! Early primates didn’t just thrive in tropical forests, they evolved and dispersed through cold & temperate climates 🐒🧊 Enjoyed being part of this collaboration led by @avaria_jorge! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Uploaded two preprints with fantastic colleagues: one on handedness, the other on sexual dimorphism, both tackling different aspects of human evolution 🧠💪 👉 Handedness: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 👉 Dimorphism: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... Thrilled to have been part of this fantastic collaboration: A Dryopithecine Talus From Abocador de Can Mata (Vallès‐Penedès Basin); check out our new paper! 🦴

New paper alert! 🦧 Described a new dryopithecine talus from the Vallès-Penedès basin to inform about crown hominoid locomotor evolution 👇 doi.org/10.1002/ajpa... with Shubham Pal, @tpuschel.bsky.social , @a-urciuoli.bsky.social , Víctor Vinuesa, Josep M. Robles, Sergio Almécija and David M. Alba

With @tpuschel.bsky.social we wrote this text on #FEA models in #biomechanics: Models aren’t reality, just tools for specific questions. Comparing different models outside their context? Like apples & oranges. 📓Read more 👇

I was recently interviewed by @bigthink.com in connection to our research on brain size evolution 🧠 bigthink.com/the-past/how...

The latest issue of PaleoAnthropology is now out! #openaccess Volume 2025, Issue 1, In Progress Read Here: paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/issue/view/91 #paleoanthropology #humanevolution #archaeology

Nice visualisation of our latest paper in a new French scientific magazine 🧠

Shrinking trees and tuskless elephants: the strange ways species are adapting to humans

#SciAdvent Dec11 🐦‍⬛🌲🐦‍⬛🌲🐦‍⬛ How do the stunning shapes of starling #murmurations happen? How does each bird know what to do? By 3D-tracking starling flocks and comparing their movements with computer simulations 👩‍💻, researchers found out that birds only keep track of about 7 other closest birds! (1/2)

Scientists, academics, researchers: We’re excited to share that @altmetric.com is now tracking mentions of your research on Bluesky! 🧪