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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.

Many thousands of years ago, even before Homo sapiens evolved, humanoid people were using fire, according to Chinese scientists.
24 July, 2018 - 13:14 Mark Miller

Use of fire by Peking Man goes back 600,000 years, Chinese scientists say

Chinese scientists are saying an early human ancestor, Peking Man, set up fireplaces and cooked food about 600,000 years ago—the earliest evidence for fire use by a human species yet. They found...
Eritrean Grand Canyon, East African rift valley.
16 July, 2018 - 19:00 ancient-origins

Rethinking Homo sapiens? The story of our origins gets dizzyingly complicated

By Darren Curnoe / The Conversation You might say it’s the ultimate prize of science, to discover when, where and why humans evolved. For a long time, the evidence has been overwhelming that Homo...
Little Foot skull still in place in the Sterkfontein cave.
13 July, 2018 - 03:29 Mark Miller

Scientists estimate fossilized pre-human creature lived 3.67 million years ago

In 2015, scientists announced an earlier time frame than previously estimated for the lifetime of an early proto-human dubbed Little Foot – as much as 3.67 million years ago. The nearly complete...
Picture taken at the site of the discovery of ancient tools in China.
12 July, 2018 - 13:57 ancient-origins

New Find Indicates Humans Left Africa Earlier than Believed

Ancient tools and bones have been discovered in China by archaeologists that suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought. The artifacts show that our earliest...
The 40,000-year-old remains of Mungo Man were discovered in 1974 on the southern sector of the eroding Lake Mungo shoreline.
8 July, 2018 - 22:56 ancient-origins

Fifty Years Ago, at Lake Mungo, the True Scale of Aboriginal Australians’ Epic Story was Revealed

This month marks the golden jubilee of a watershed event in the history of this nation that should cause all Australians to pause and reflect. On July 15, 1968, while searching for clues to past...
Model of the foot (with missing elements) of the Australopithecus afarensis Dikika child.
7 July, 2018 - 22:53 ancient-origins

The Dikka Child Toddled Over the Ethiopian Landscape 200,000 Years Before Lucy

More than 3 million years ago, our ancient human ancestors, including their toddler-aged children, were standing on two feet and walking upright, according to a new study published in Science...
Coming together for a solstice feast in ancient Peru. Robert Gutierrez.
5 July, 2018 - 22:55 ancient origins

How Feasting Rituals Helped Lead to a Civilized World

Charles Stanish / The Conversation “ The Epic of Gilgamesh ” is one of the earliest texts known in the world. It’s the story of a god-king, Gilgamesh, who ruled the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia in the...
Two actors from the History Channel series “Vikings.”
2 July, 2018 - 14:58 Mark Miller

Survey Shows About Half of Brits Wish They Were Descended from Vikings…and Many Probably Are!

If you’re from the British Isles, do you ever wonder if you’re a descendant of the marauding Vikings known sometimes to rape and pillage far from home and other times to set up settlements and...
Prehistoric Man Hunting Bears by Emmanuel Benner the Younger.
8 June, 2018 - 13:56 ancient-origins

Neolithic Male Genetic Diversity Plummeted – Here’s Why

Starting about 7,000 years ago, something weird seems to have happened to men: Over the next two millennia, recent studies suggest, their genetic diversity - specifically, the diversity of their Y...
Stylized artists impression of Easter Island.
7 June, 2018 - 23:00 ancient-origins

Can Any Civilization Make It Through Climate Change?

A case study of the inhabitants of Easter Island served in part as the basis for a mathematical model showing the ways a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop or collapse...
Fossilized jawbone, dubbed Penghu 1, found submerged in seafloor near Taiwan. Dated between 10,000 and 190,000 years ago. Credit: Y. Kaifu,
31 May, 2018 - 03:42 lizleafloor

Taiwan Jaw Bone Connected to the Origins of Humanity, May Reveal Entirely New Prehistoric Species

The first ancient human fossil found in Taiwan may indicate the presence of an unknown archaic species of humans who lived in Asia during the Pleistocene era, possibly hundreds of thousands of years...
University at Buffalo Ph.D. candidate Alia Lesnek works at Suemez Island.
31 May, 2018 - 01:54 ancient-origins

Clever Rock Science Provides New Possibilities for Migration to the Americas

When and how did the first people come to the Americas? The conventional story says that the earliest settlers came via Siberia, crossing the now-defunct Bering land bridge on foot and trekking...
Genealogy of the Incas by Cuzco School. 18th or early 19th century.
28 May, 2018 - 18:58 ashley cowie

Creation Myths Hold Hard Facts About Our Ancient Origins

The largest pre-Hispanic civilization in the Americas was the Inca Empire and from their capital city of Cusco, rulers known as Sapa Inka (Quechua for "the only Inca”) controlled a vast territory...
Triceratops Horn Dated to 33,500 Years
24 May, 2018 - 03:11 aprilholloway

Did Humans Walk the Earth with Dinosaurs? Triceratops Horn Dated to 33,500 Years

A Triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, has been controversially dated to around 33,500 years, challenging the view that dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago. The...
Human Brain by J.M. Bourgery, 1831-1854.
24 May, 2018 - 02:00 ancient-origins

Why do humans have such large brains? (And why aren’t they larger?)

Mauricio Gonzalez Forero / The Conversation Most animals have brains in proportion to their body size – species with larger bodies often have larger brains. But the human brain is almost six times...
Araucaria over a Nothofagus forest, Araucania Region, Chile.
18 May, 2018 - 13:56 ancient-origins

Critically Endangered South American Forests were Planted by Ancient Peoples

Critically endangered South American forests thought to be the result of climate change were actually spread by ancient communities, archaeologists have found. Huge swathes of land in Chile, Brazil...
Neanderthal man at the Natural History Museum London
13 May, 2018 - 14:44 Alicia McDermott

Spectacular Science! Lab-Grown Mini Neanderthal Brains Could Explain What Makes Humans Different

We’re living in an age when many people believe there are no limits to what technology can do. Apply that to paleogenetics and you’ll see research into ancient disease, the domestication of animals,...
The Woolly Mammoth at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia
13 May, 2018 - 01:55 ancient-origins

Could Resurrecting Mammoths Help Stop Arctic Emissions?

If you managed to time travel back to Ice-Age Europe, you might be forgiven for thinking you had instead crash landed in some desolate part of the African savannah. But the chilly temperatures and...
Engraving found in Crimean cave on flint flake from Kiik-Koba layer IV.
5 May, 2018 - 01:27 ancient-origins

Engraved Crimean Stone Artifact May Demonstrate Neanderthal Symbolism

A flint flake from the Middle Paleolithic of Crimea was likely engraved symbolically by a skilled Neanderthal hand, according to a study published May 2, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by...
Image illustrates the difference in skull and nose shape in the three human species tested: Neanderthal, Modern Human, and Homo heidelbergensis.
27 April, 2018 - 23:00 ancient-origins

Professor Lends Anatomy Expertise to Solve Ancient Mystery

Scientists have long wondered why the physical traits of Neanderthals, the ancestors of modern humans, differ greatly from today's man. In particular, researchers have deliberated the factors that...
Several types of mammoths walked the earth during the Pleistocene epoch.
21 April, 2018 - 23:02 ancient-origins

Unprecedented Wave of Large-mammal Extinctions Linked to Prehistoric Humans

Homo sapiens , Neanderthals and other recent human relatives may have begun hunting large mammal species down to size -- by way of extinction -- at least 90,000 years earlier than previously thought...
Eyebrows on fleek: Model of a modern human skull next to Kabwe 1.
18 April, 2018 - 01:48 ancient-origins

Why Expressive Brows Might Have Mattered in Human Evolution

Highly mobile eyebrows that can be used to express a wide range of subtle emotions may have played a crucial role in human survival, new research from the University of York suggests. Like the...
Sacred Inca citadel, Machu Picchu, Peru, on the boarder of the Andes and the Amazon.
12 April, 2018 - 14:02 ancient-origins

Matching Myth and Genetics: Revealing the Origins of the Inca Through Modern DNA

The Inca people arrived at Cusco valley and in a few centuries built the Tawantinsuyu, the largest empire in the Americas. The Tawantinsuyu was the cultural climax of 6,000 years of Central Andes...
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal holding a spear
8 April, 2018 - 13:54 ancient-origins

Oldest Neanderthal Wooden Tools Found in Spain Were Made 90,000 Years Ago

Archaeological excavations in Northern Spain have revealed several episodes of Neanderthal occupations with preserved wooden remains. The excavation revealed two very well preserved wooden tools; one...

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