Currently viewing a development environment

Darcy Shapiro

Evolutionary Anthropology

Rutgers University

Hi! I'm Darcy Shapiro, a recent PhD in evolutionary anthropology from Rutgers University. I study the internal structure of the hip bones of primates, to try to figure out how fossil primates and our early hominid relatives climbed, walked, ran, scrambled, swung, and leaped around.

Darcy has authored 11 articles

Did humans evolve to eat raw, aged, or cooked meat? I tried to test digestion

Read now →

That's how I ended up feeding raw meat to undergrads

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 1 peer comment

"Skeleton Keys" reveals the secrets hidden inside your bones

Read now →

Brian Switek's book breathes new life into our understanding of old bones

Darcy Shapiro

How the pelvis, and not bipedalism, gave humans their narrow hips

Read now →

The anatomy of our pelvis is a result of an evolutionary trade-off, but perhaps it's not the one we thought

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 1 peer comment

Humans in South America evolved to live with arsenic poisoning

Read now →

The toxic environment offers clues to ancient mummies and human evolution

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 1 peer comment

Unexpected gorilla snacking behaviors make scientists question what we know about early humans

Read now →

Gorillas' eating habits don't match their tooth specializations, raising questions about determining early human diets from fossil records

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 3 peer comments

How did human butts evolve to look that way?

Read now →

An evolutionary anthropologist tackles the mystery of the butt

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 2 peer comments

Netflix's Our Planet showed walruses in distress. We need to find what humanity's role is

Read now →

Understanding walrus-human interactions in the past might shed some light on the "walrus scene"

Darcy Shapiro

Comment 1 peer comment

The slap-dash nature of evolution makes entertaining reading

Read now →

Nathan Lents' new book details the accidental, incidental nature of human quirks

Darcy Shapiro

The history of humanity is written across your smile

Read now →

'The Tales Teeth Tell' traces the evolution of our teeth into "oral Swiss army knives"

Darcy Shapiro

Darcy has shared 6 notes

How did our ancestors start walking upright?

Read now →

A newly discovered species of ancient ape could shed light on the origins of human bipedalism

A Denisovan jaw bone is discovered; ancient human relative skeleton becomes more complete

Read now →

Previously, only fragments of bone and mitochondrial DNA linked Denisovans to Homo sapiens

Just in time for Halloween, the spookiest primate tricks the world with a hidden thumb

Read now →

The aye-aye has been hiding a secret all this time: a sixth pseudodigit

Some spooky Halloween Archaeology facts from Massive Consortium member Darcy Shapiro

Read now →

These true stories show that archaeology has plenty of terrifying discoveries to share

Bonobos' penchant for aquatic herbs might be why we have such big brains

Read now →

Iodine promotes brain development, but until now we did not know where our hominin ancestors may have gotten this mineral