It is time for year-end lists… And below is a very personal one, with my 10 favorite hominin #FossilFriday tweets published in 2021, from number 10 to 1.

What is a ‘FossilFriday’? Every Friday, people post pics of interesting fossils using the hashtag #FossilFriday, mainly on Twitter. This can be about famous specimens, odd fossils, museum collections, scientific papers, blog posts, rare photos, etc. I love to join & tweet about hominin fossils. One more time -8 years already- let’s start the top 10 of 2021!

10. A Neandertal foot from El Sidrón, still embedded in the rock. By Tom Higham @tommyhigham

9. The Zeeland Ridge Neandertal, found at the bottom of the North Sea. By Soumik Saha @saha_soumik_27

8. UR 501: Homo or Paranthropus? By Ellison Guzzy @GuzzyEllison 

7. The delicate preparation of a 10,000 yr-old child fossil from Turkana, Kenya. By Marta Mirazon Lahr @MartaMLahr 

6. The journey from sediment block to reconstruction from 100s of bits of this Paranthropus robustus cranium DNH 155. By Andy I. R. Herries @Ozarchaeomaglab

5. Neandertal-like occipitals, not a very usual view of fossil skull pics! By Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65 

4. The Denisovan story continues. What a gorgeous molar. By Paige Madison @FossilHistory 

3. The bronze medal is shared by Jesse Martin & Angeline Leece @Palaeozone and Zach Cofran @ZCofran. From different angles, they face the question of Stw 53 being a Homo specimen or not.

2. Remember the Laetoli footprints? I like seeing this Australopithecus afarensis foot as if it left those tracks. By Jeremy Desilva @desilva_jerry 

1. La Chapelle aux Saints Neandertal, outside and inside! By PaleoBRAIN @BrainPaleo

Want more? Check out the lists from previous years:

2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014

Merry Christmas and Happy 2022!