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DNA molecule spiral structure with unique connection.

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...
Silhouette of a person under an arch. (CC0)  Background: DNA.

Twelve Degrees of Separation: Do Human Haplogroups Lead Us to Adam or Perhaps the Adityas?

From the creation of Adam, until the birth of Noah (as a significant proportion of the world believes), there are eleven generations of his line; Adam, Cain and his brother Abel, Seth, Enosh, Cainain...
First Americans, photo of mural in the Page Museum, Los Angeles by Travis S.

Previous Models of Ancient Populations in the Americas were ‘Unrealistically Simple’

A new genetic study of ancient individuals in the Americas and their contemporary descendants finds that two populations that diverged from one another 18,000 to 15,000 years ago remained apart for...
Neanderthal man at the Natural History Museum London

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,...
A modern human, left, and Neanderthal woman, right.

Research Confirms That 20% of the Neanderthal Genome Can Be Found In Modern Humans

Though it was disputed for many years, there is conclusive evidence that Neanderthals bred with modern humans (Homo sapiens). The first complete mapping of a Neanderthal genome took place about five...
 Preserved Megalapteryx (moa) foot, Natural History Museum

Extinct Bird with Dinosaur-Like Claw May Soon Be Resurrected

A clawed, flightless bird that went extinct in New Zealand in the late 13th century might be brought back to life, claim scientists at Harvard University. Nearly three decades ago, archaeologists...
Neanderthals (CC0)

Five Surprising Things DNA has Revealed About our Ancestors

Researchers recently used DNA from the 10,000-year-old “Cheddar Man”, one of Britain’s oldest skeletons, to unveil what the first inhabitants of what now is Britain actually looked like. But this isn...
Modern Humans Emerged More than 300,000 Years Ago New Study Suggests

Modern Humans Emerged More than 300,000 Years Ago New Study Suggests

A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from KwaZulu-Natal revealed that southern Africa has an important role to play in writing the history of humankind. A research team from Uppsala University...
Weakened Neanderthal amongst plant foodstuff

New Studies Clash with Previous Analyses On the Life and Fate of Neanderthals

Two new studies have emerged in the past week claiming to provide more details than ever about the Neanderthal’s genetic contribution to the modern population plus a new theory on how it eventually...
Egyptian sarcophagus containing mummified remains

The First Genome Data from Ancient Egyptian Mummies: Ancient Egyptians Were Most Closely Related to Ancient Populations from the Near East

An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, successfully recovered and analyzed...
Vindija Cave in Croatia where Neanderthal DNA was found in cave sediment

DNA Can Now be Extracted from Dirt! New Tech May Solve Many Mysteries of Human Origins

An amazing technological innovation in the study of DNA has been called a ‘game changer’ in the research into ancient humans and hominids. It may solve many of the mysteries that exist in relation to...
Researchers Want to Get the Dirt on How Much Neanderthals and Modern Humans had Sex

Researchers Want to Get the Dirt on How Much Neanderthals and Modern Humans had Sex

Would you have sex with a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis if they hadn’t gone extinct? Your ancestors may have. Scientists are testing cave dirt for the presence of Neanderthal DNA from disintegrated...
Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries of 2016: From Lost Cities to Ancient Tombs, Shrines, Maps and Unknown Species

Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries of 2016: From Lost Cities to Ancient Tombs, Shrines, Maps and Unknown Species

This year has provided an array of exciting, and sometimes puzzling, discoveries for archaeologists and ancient history enthusiasts. Looking back to our most ancient ancestors, a few of the...
Researchers Find Evidence for Deadly Malaria in Imperial Rome 2000 Years Ago

Researchers Find Evidence for Deadly Malaria in Imperial Rome 2000 Years Ago

Biologists and other academics have long debated whether there was malaria in ancient Rome, and recent analysis of teeth of human remains from the time has confirmed it, says a story just published...
Schizophrenia Emerged After Humans Diverged from Neanderthals

Schizophrenia Emerged After Humans Diverged from Neanderthals

Schizophrenia poses an evolutionary enigma. The disorder has existed throughout recorded human history and persists despite its severe effects on thought and behavior, and its reduced rates of...
A model of the face of an adult female Homo erectus. Reconstruction by John Gurche, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Scientists Say A Mystery Species Bred with Ancient Humans in Distant Past

A new study of the genomes of Australasians has revealed sections of DNA that do not match any known hominin species. The dramatic findings mean that a mystery species bred with ancient humans in the...
A Paracas elongated skull and an artist’s impression based on a digital reconstruction.

New DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Elongated Paracas Skulls Changes Known History

The elongated skulls of Paracas in Peru caused a stir in 2014 when a geneticist that carried out preliminary DNA testing reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human...
An Illustration of ancient farmers. Copyright Nicholls (2008)

Ancient Skeletons Change History: Farming Invented Multiple Times Across the Globe

An international research team led by Mainz palaeogeneticists demonstrates that populations in the ancient Fertile Crescent are the ancestors of modern day South Asians but not of Europeans...
Inbred Neanderthals Left Humans with a Genetic Burden

Inbred Neanderthals Left Humans with a Genetic Burden

The Neanderthal genome included harmful mutations that made the hominids around 40% less reproductively fit than modern humans, according to estimates published in the latest issue of the journal...
Human DNA

An ancient retrovirus has been found in human DNA – and it might still be active

Striking evidence has emerged that an ancient virus previously known only from fossil evidence has persistently infected some humans at very low levels for hundreds of thousands or even millions of...
"The Last Days of Tenochtitlan, Conquest of Mexico by Cortez", a 19th-century painting by William de Leftwich Dodge.

Genes of 92 prehistoric Native Americans give further evidence of a terrible holocaust

The genocide of Native Americans is considered by many to be the worst of any in history—outstripping the later Jewish and Roma Holocaust by as much as an order of magnitude. Now a study of the...
Main: A DNA molecule (C. Bock/Wikimedia Commons). Inset: Two Melanesian girls

Ancient Denisovan DNA discovered in modern Pacific Islanders

The archaic Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA that persists in modern individuals from the Pacific islands of Melanesia could be a source of new information about early human history, according to a...
Denisova Cave, Russia. Inset: Denisovan molar discovered in Denisova Cave, Replica in Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels, Belgium.

DNA from Ancient Denisovan Tooth Sheds Light on Mysterious Human Relative

The Denisovans are a mysterious hominid species that we only know about from two molar teeth and the bone of a pinky finger discovered in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia...
Photos of the child mummy that may have been sacrificed in a ritual of Capacocha. Above left, detail of the mummy’s dissected lung. A small sample of 350 milligrams (0.01 ounces) was used to extract DNA in the current study.

Genetic Analysis of a Frozen Andean Mummy Reveals a Previously Unknown Lineage

In 1985, a frozen and half buried mummy of a young boy was recovered from the mountain of Aconcagua in Argentina. Now, a team of scientists have managed to extract and sequence his mitochondrial DNA...

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