DNA from Neanderthal bones found in a cave in Russia have revealed the first known family of Neanderthals – a father, his teenage daughter, and others who were probably cousins. A 2020 study...
Ancient humans and Neanderthals, and Denisovans, were genetically closer than polar bears and brown bears, and so, like the bears, were able to easily produce healthy, fertile hybrids according to a...
Do you remember those school science posters that depicted human evolution with a primate standing up and becoming a modern human? Of course you do, but you may not have noticed that these posters...
The Denisovan story keeps evolving. This group of ancient hominins has been something of a mystery ever since they were first discovered in 2010 as an extinct sister group to the Neanderthals. Bits...
Early humans seem to have recognized the dangers of inbreeding at least 34,000 years ago, and developed surprisingly sophisticated social and mating networks to avoid it, new research has found. The...
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...
Footprints belonging to a group of early hominins who lived 3.6 million years ago were recently uncovered in Tanzania. The footprints indicate Australopithecus afarensis probably had a gorilla-like...
A new study has suggested that the prime reason that monogamy evolved in humans and primates was the threat of infants being killed by unrelated males. The team of researchers from University College...