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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.

13,000-year-old Saharan remains
4 April, 2019 - 12:53 joannagillan

13,000-year-old Saharan Remains Tell Of First Known Homo Sapiens War In Africa

In 2014, a fresh analysis on a set of human remains dating back 13,000 years, which were found on the east bank of the Nile in northern Sudan , suggested the individuals were victims of an intergroup...
Pelicar - A Guanche king
3 April, 2019 - 02:01 Alicia McDermott

Researchers Get Closer to Finding the Origins of the Enigmatic Guanches…and No, They are Not Atlanteans

The Guanches were the white-skinned and fair-haired aboriginal people of the Canary Islands. With their location so near to North Africa, their origins have long presented a mystery for researchers...
Denisovans mated with modern humans.
1 April, 2019 - 22:57 Ed Whelan

Modern Humans Could Have Mated With Denisovans as Recently as 15,000 Years Ago

A study has made a startling claim. It argues that an extinct species of humans, the Denisovans , may have mated with modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) as late as 15,000 years ago. This claim is based...
Modern human eyes (Konzentation)
26 March, 2019 - 00:50 ancient-origins

Origin of Modern Human Behavior is South NOT East Africa [New Research]

Researchers from the University of Huddersfield, with colleagues from the University of Cambridge and the University of Minho in Braga, have been using a genetic approach to tackle one of the most...
Left; Whitehawk woman Right; Neanderthal Woman Reconstruction Exhibition, Brighton.
30 January, 2019 - 23:01 Ed Whelan

Facial Reconstruction Brings People Face-to-Face With Their Ancient Ancestors

Detailed data and minute details have both fed into an exhibition taking place In the English city of Brighton, that offers people a chance to see not only physical cultural items, but their ancient...
Portrait of three girls of different nationalities.
30 January, 2019 - 01:44 ancient-origins

Genetic Breakthrough Changes the Way We View Skin Color

University College London / Science Daily Skin color is one of the most visible and variable traits among humans and scientists have always been curious about how this variation evolved. Now, a study...
DNA molecule spiral structure with unique connection.
24 January, 2019 - 22:43 ancient-origins

Study Proves Human Mutation Rate Is Slower Than Believed Posing New Date For Human-Neanderthal Separation

By Christina Troelsen / Science Daily Researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, and Copenhagen Zoo have discovered that the human mutation rate is significantly slower than for our closest primate...
New research suggests Neanderthal extinction was earlier than previously believed.
22 January, 2019 - 19:00 Ed Whelan

New Evidence Questions the Time and Place of Neanderthal Extinction

In recent years there have been a series of finds that have revolutionized our understanding of the Neanderthals and their extinction in Eurasia. It is widely held in academic circles that...
Key images from the top human origins stories of 2018: Sophisticated tools and large, all-purpose handaxes from the Olorgesailie Basin in Kenya. (Human Origins Program, Smithsonian) Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia. (Petra Korlević) Neanderthal cave art in La Pasiega, Spain (C.D Standish, A.W.G. Pike and D.L. Hoffmann) Photograph of a footprint beside digitally-enhanced image of the same feature. (Duncan McLaren) The left hemi-maxilla
21 January, 2019 - 13:48 Sarah P Young

Five Things We Learned About Our Human Origins in 2018

The question of what makes us human is one that is fascinating to most of us, and for many the answer lies in looking back to our roots as a species. 2018 was a fantastic year for learning new and...
Neanderthal vs human skull.
18 January, 2019 - 18:35 ancient-origins

Artificial Intelligence Has Identified Previously Undetected Hominid in the Human Family Tree

By combining deep learning algorithms and statistical methods, investigators from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for...
Study finds an archaic hominin had modern dental growth.(Inset: Two digitally reconstructed teeth)
17 January, 2019 - 22:51 ancient-origins

104,000-Year-Old Tooth of Mysterious Hominin Child Raises Questions About Human Evolution

By Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg / Science Advances A relative of modern humans that lived at least 104,000 years ago in northern China showed evidence of dental growth and development very similar to...
Testing of DNA molecules
14 January, 2019 - 22:54 ancient-origins

DNA Tool Allows You To Trace Your Ancient Ancestry

University of Sheffield Scientists at the University of Sheffield studying ancient DNA have created a tool allowing them to more accurately identify ancient Eurasian populations, which can be used to...
A piece of hematite found in Denisova cave was used as a crayon for art work in the cave.
16 December, 2018 - 14:13 ancient-origins

Ancient Colored ‘Pencil’ Up To 50,000-Years-Old Found in Siberia

Cave-dwellers used hematite crayon for art work in Altai Mountains, say archeologists investigating a latest find in Siberia. The pre-historic artists were not Homo sapiens but Denisovans - a long-...
Early hominids processing game with stone tools. Diorama at the Nairobi National Museum.
1 December, 2018 - 02:00 ancient-origins

Resourceful and Intelligent, Unidentified Hominins Flourished in Arabia Using “Old School” Stone Tools

Beginning more than 1.5 million years ago, early humans made stone handaxes in a style known as the Acheulean - the longest lasting tool-making tradition in prehistory. New research led by the Max...
Examples of developmental skeletal abnormalities in Pleistocene people. Left to right: the Tianyuan 1, Sunghir 3 and Dolní V stonice 15 abnormal femora, Center, top to bottom: the Palomas 23 mandibular "flange", the Rochereil 3 cranial lacuna, the long Sunghir 1 clavicle, the Malarnaud 1 incisor agenesis. Right, top to bottom: the Shanidar 1 sacral hiatus, the Pataud 1 polygenesis, and the Dolní V stonice 16 cleft palate.
7 November, 2018 - 13:52 Ed Whelan

‘Abundant’ Occurrence of Skeletal Abnormalities Found in Early Humans

An American researcher examining ancient human remains has made a potentially ground-breaking discovery. The expert found a huge number of abnormalities and defects that seem to indicate extensive...
Neanderthal man with spear in hand.
31 October, 2018 - 21:55 ancient-origins

3D Ribcage Indicates Neanderthals Looked Nothing Like We Thought

An international team of scientists has completed the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neanderthal skeleton unearthed to date, potentially shedding new light on how...
West African rain forest during amazing sunset, Liberia, West Africa
7 September, 2018 - 22:56 ancient-origins

Human Evolution: Secrets of Early Ancestors Could Be Unlocked by African Rainforests

By Eleanor Scerri / The Conversation Think of African rainforests and the picture is inevitably one of a dark and forbidding realm where life is abundant, yet alarmingly cryptic. Rather than the...
Depiction of a Neanderthal
30 August, 2018 - 23:01 ancient-origins

Cold Climates Contributed to the Extinction of the Neanderthals

Climate change may have played a more important role in the extinction of Neanderthals than previously believed, according to a new study published in the journal, Proceedings of the Natural Academy...
Artistic impression of primitive “Stone Age” man
28 August, 2018 - 00:12 ancient-origins

Australian archaeologists dropped the term Stone Age decades ago, and so should you

“Stone Age” is a term often used to refer to early periods in human cultural evolution, when deliberately manufactured sharp stone flakes were the main cutting tool. But it’s also used to describe...
Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia.
23 August, 2018 - 14:02 ancient-origins

Neanderthal Mother, Denisovan Father! Concrete Proof that Hybrid Hominin Families Did Exist

Together with their sister group the Neanderthals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. "We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have...
This restoration is based on evidence from the Daka Member, Ethiopia. The photo in the background is from a gallery forest on the Kebena River, a tributary of the modern Awash River. The squatting posture is based on femoral anteversion frequent in Homo erectus. The hand ax is African latest early or early middle Acheulean. The cranial shape is based on BOU-VP-2-66, the Daka Calvaria.
16 August, 2018 - 01:57 ancient-origins

Idle Not Innovative? New Study Says Laziness Led to the Extinction of Homo erectus

The path of least resistence may not be the best to take. New archaeological research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that Homo erectus , a species of primitive humans, went...
The concave hole found in the Catalonia cave
15 August, 2018 - 00:47 Joanna Gillan

Discoveries in Spanish cave suggest Neanderthals had hot water and bedrooms

Archaeologists in Spain have made a number of discoveries inside an ancient cave in Catalonia which suggest that Neanderthals had hot water and separate living quarters around 60,000 years ago. The...
In this illustration, the modern pygmy village, Rampasasa, is shown at left; in the center, a modern Rampasasa pygmy wearing the traditional head covering and clothing is juxtaposed against the face of a Homo floresiensis reconstruction; at right, pygmy elephants play in the Liang Bua cave where theH. floresiensis fossils were discovered in 2004.
5 August, 2018 - 22:55 ancient-origins

Scientists Understand Why there are Short-statured Indonesians Today, But Can they Explain Hobbit Height?

Michael Westaway & Francis David Bulbeck / The Conversation Humans are diverse in size and shape – but some populations are of relatively low average height, and historically described using the...
Our species is ecologically unique in its ability to occupy, and specialize in, a variety of different environments as it began to colonize the entire planet between approximately 300 and 60 thousand years ago.
1 August, 2018 - 19:02 ancient-origins

Adapt, Diversify, Find a Niche: Survival Tactics of Homo Sapiens That Brought World Domination

Our species' ability to occupy diverse and 'extreme' settings around the world in the Middle and Late Pleistocene (300-12 thousand years ago) stands in stark contrast to the ecological adaptations of...

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