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Evolution & Human Origins

We bring you all the latest news and discoveries relating to human origins and evolution. The more fossils that are unearthed, the more researchers admit that there is much that is still unknown about the evolution of humans.

A heard of Triceratops horridus walking through a Cretaceous swamp.	Source: Bart Bus/Naturalis Biodiversity Center

New Element of Triceratops Defense Found In Wyoming Fossils

Though Spielberg’s Jurassic Park got a few things wrong historically, it seemed to have got some things spot on. Triceratops, the dinosaur with three horns and the large neck frill, may have indeed...
Rock art showing a hunter-gatherer ritual dance; Kondoa, Tanzania. Source: Nick Longrich/The ConversationAnchor

Why Did Modern Humans Replace the Neanderthals?

By Nicholas R. Longrich/The Conversation Why did humans take over the world while our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, became extinct? It’s possible we were just smarter, but there’s surprisingly...
Persian Plateau, the most likely place where the ancestors of all present-day non-Africans lived for the 20,000 years that followed their migration Out of Africa. Source: Vallini et al/Nature

Scientists Make A Great Step Forward in the ‘Where After Africa?’ Question

A growing body of evidence indicates that our ancestors left Africa between approximately 70 to 60 thousand years ago. Yet, it wasn't until around 45,000 years ago that they spread across Eurasia...
AI image of ancient humans communicating with primitive language and gestures. Source: fotogurmespb/Adobe Stock

Language Developed 8 Times Earlier Than Previously Thought, Says New Book

A landmark new book that has researched evolutionary and linguistic development of prehistoric humans, has found that language might be older almost 8 times over what was previously believed, i.e., 1...
Pictorial reconstruction of Pebanista yacuruna in the murky waters of the Peruvian proto-Amazon. Source: Jaime Bran/University of Zurich

Prehistoric Giant Dolphin Discovered in the Amazon Has Foreign Connections

Between 3 and 3.5 meters long and 16 million years old: paleontologists at the University of Zurich have discovered a new species of freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon. Surprisingly, their...
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at the Pleistocene era. Source: Ittiz/ CC BY-SA 3.0

First Ice Age May Have Led to Epic Hominin Migration 900,000 Years Ago

About one million years ago there was a mass exodus of hominin species out of Africa and into Eurasia. Human ancestors fled their home continent in droves, raising questions about why this would have...
Worked “Mode 2” tools from the site with intentional breakage points which point to this sophisticated tool production process arriving in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. Source: IVPP / SciTechDaily.

Did Hominids in Asia Use Advanced Tools Much Earlier than Thought?

A new find in China has potentially rewritten the course of prehistory. Did our hominid ancestors use sophisticated tools in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than thought? One of the best ways to...
Indian family standing and smiling holding their kids in the park. Source: kristineldridge/Adobe Stock

Genetic Study Reveals Shocking Details about Ancestry of Modern Indians

Featuring a rich and diverse mix of ethnicities and cultures, the people of South Asia have always been a source of fascination for scientists interested in studying human evolution and genetics. It...
Stone Paleolithic tool possibly from Layer VII at Korolevo I. Surface find. Source: Roman Garba / Nature

Paleolithic Tools Prove Hominins Were in Europe 1.4 Million Years Ago

After five decades of speculation about their true origin, ancient stone tools removed from the archaeological site of Korolevo in western Ukraine have been successfully dated for the first time...
Skeletal remains of an adult and a child at Altwies "Op dem Boesch". Source: photo/©: Foni Le Brun-Ricalens, Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques, Luxembourg/JGU

Bronze Age Burial Study Links Peoples of Britain and Luxembourg

An illuminating study published in late 2023 has found evidence of family links in the western European Bell Beaker communities, linking Britain to Luxembourg in the Bronze Age. The research delved...
Why is it that hominoids have experienced tail loss, while other primates have not? Source: v_blinov / Adobe Stock

25-Million-Year-Old DNA Explains Why Humans and Apes Don’t Have Tails

While many primate species have tails, humans and their ape cousins do not. For many years scientists have debated the reasons for this curious tail loss variation, trying to understand the reasons...
Two parrots spreading their flight feathers. Source: ondrejprosicky/Adobe Stock

New Rule for Flight Feathers Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly

Birds can fly— at least, most of them can. Flightless birds like penguins and ostriches have evolved lifestyles that don’t require flight. However, there’s a lot that scientists don’t know about how...
Dinocephalosaurus fossil which is reminiscent of the mythical Chinese dragon.            Source: Nicholas C. Fraser/Naturkundemuseum

Aquatic Reptile From 240 Million Years Ago Resembling the ‘Chinese Dragon’ Uncovered

In the ‘Year of the Dragon’, a poetically perfect discovery has been made as the complete fossil of an aquatic creature that resembles the mythical ‘Chinese Dragon’ has been uncovered! The entire...
Archaeologists analyzing the remains from excavations at the Cova dels Xaragalls burial cave in Catalonia. Source: IPHES-CERCA

Prehistoric Catalonia Burial Cave Reveals Over 7,000 Human Remains

Archaeologists in Catalonia, northeastern Spain, have unearthed human and animal remains and ornamental objects spanning from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The Cova dels Xaragalls cave, located in...
Reconstruction of how the stone artifact with the handle made of the bitumen-ocher mixture could be held by a Neanderthal woman. 	Source: © Berlin State Museums, Museum of Prehistory and Early History, illustration: Daniela Greinert

Adhesive Grips on Neanderthal Tools Reveals Species’ Advanced Creativity

A team of researchers from Germany and the United States recently published a study that suggests Neanderthals might have had far more creative intelligence than previously believed. The study,...
Modern day woman with Down syndrome looking at you while group of girls practicing yoga in gym. Source: pressmaster/Adobe Stock

Signature of Down Syndrome Found in Ancient Humans

A brilliant and comprehensive new study has analyzed the DNA of almost 10,000 people from ancient and pre-modern societies, and found 6 cases of Down syndrome in past or ancient human populations...
Representative image of the impact of ancient retrovirus on evolution. Source: alexkich / Adobe Stock

Brain’s Evolutionary Explosion Linked to Ancient Retrovirus Infection

A new study has unraveled a mystery that is key to understanding the course of human and animal evolution. A team of genetic researchers from Altos Labs at the Cambridge Institute of Science in the...
Representation of hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia. Source: HaiderShah/Adobe Stock

Scandinavia's First Farmers Slaughtered the Hunter-gatherer Population

Lund University Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund...
Panoramic photograph of the rocky shore platform on the Larache area coast of Morocco where the 90000-year-old footprints were found. The area delimited by the dotted red line corresponds to the footprint discovery zone. Source: M. Sedrati, et al/Nature

90,000-Years-Old Footprints Discovered On Moroccan Beach

85 human footprints dating to 90,000-years-ago have been found on a beach in Morocco. But how did they get there, and what were the people doing? In 1964, when Margaret Fishback Powers wrote the...
Analysis of over 1,000 animal bones from Ranis showed that early Homo sapiens processed the carcasses of deer but also of carnivores, including wolf. Source: Geoff M. Smith / CC-BY-ND 4.0 / Nature

New Evidence of Early Humans Crossing the Alps 45,000 Years Ago

Between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, the lands of present-day Europe and Asia experienced a population exchange between Homo sapiens (modern humans) and Neanderthals , with the former steadily...
Reconstruction of the locomotor behavior and paleoenvironment of Lufengpithecus.	Source: Illustration by Xiaocong Guo; image courtesy of Xijun Ni, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

How Did Humans Learn to Walk? New Evolutionary Study Offers an Earful

New York University Humans and our closest relatives, living apes, display a remarkable diversity of types of locomotion—from walking upright on two legs to climbing in trees and walking using all...
Aymara woman by the Titicaca Lake, collecting staples of an Andean Paleo diet.. Source: Rafal Cichawa/Adobe Stock

Andean Hunter-Gatherers Gathered Far More Than They Hunted!

A new study of human remains found at two archaeological sites in the mountains of Peru calls into question the primacy of hunting in ancient South American hunting-gathering cultures. While there is...
Reconstruction of Shiyu "horse-hunters", earliest known modern humans in China. Source: GUO Xiaocong/Nature

New Evidence Shows Modern Humans First Arrived in China 45,000 Years Ago

A new study presents evidence showing that Homo sapiens (modern humans) arrived in China approximately 45,000 years ago, or several thousand years earlier than previously suspected. The original...
Matthew Wooller, professor in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, sits among mammoth tusks in the collection at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Source: JR Ancheta/UAF

Tusk Records Woolly Mammoth’s 620-Mile Life Journey, and Alaska’s Earliest Hunting Camps

Jeff Richardson /University of Alaska Fairbanks Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the...

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