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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 representation of a Neanderthal man surveying the landscape. Source: Dr_Microbe/Adobe Stock

15 Leaps Forward in Our Understanding of Human Evolution in 2023

2023 could likely be viewed as a coming-of-age story for our Neanderthal cousins, as they further shed their brutish image, revealing themselves as skilled hunters and surprising artisans. We learned...
Image of a human skull from three perspectives.	Source: Liliya/Adobe Stock

Modern Human Brains Have More Neurons Than Neanderthals (Video)

The emergence of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, marked a pivotal moment in human evolution, challenging long-standing debates in paleoanthropology. Approximately 100,000 years ago, a...
Representative image of a Neanderthal man. Source: sam / Adobe Stock

Do Morning People Have Neanderthals to Thank for Being Early Risers?

Are you a morning person? You might have Neanderthals to thank for that! In a revelatory study, scientists have unearthed a fascinating genetic link between modern humans and our Neanderthal...
Map by the study authors depicting the location of the Buran Kaya III (1), Zlatý Kůň (2), Fournol (3), Serinyà (4), Krems-Wachtberg (5) and Věstonice (6) archeological sites, whose remains were were analyzed in the study. Also shown are one of the analyzed skull fragments and pierced beads discovered with the bone fragments from the Buran Kaya III site, as well as the Venus statuettes from Věstonice, Willendorf and the Dame de Brassempouy (from right to left).  Source: E-M. Geigl, provided by the author/The

Skulls in Ukraine Reveal Early Modern Humans Came From the East

By Eva-Maria Geigl & Thierry Grange/The Conversation How did our species, Homo sapiens , arrive in Western Europe? Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution , our new study analyses two skull...
Study reveals Denisovan genetic make-up may be responsible for modern day depression. Source: Bartek/Adobe Stock, Woraphon/Adobe Stock

Denisovan Genes Responsible for Modern Depression, Says New Study

Ancient humans inter-breeding with extinct Denisovans have created a genetic make-up and subsequent adaptations that have left many of us predisposed to certain mental health issues like depression,...
Scientists may have discovered why there is a discrepancy between the Neanderthal DNA present in modern-day Asian and European Homo sapiens. Source: Winters860 / Adobe Stock

Study Tracks Neanderthal DNA, and It’s A Cross-Continental Odyssey!

While Neanderthals went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago, they left a legacy hidden inside the genetic codes of humans, in the form of traces of their Neanderthal DNA. Even though Neanderthals...
Neanderthal man, now shown to have DNA from modern human relatives 250,000 years ago.	Source: iridescentstreet/Adobe Stock

Shock Discovery - Humans First Interbred with Neanderthals 250,000 Years Ago

A groundbreaking study has shattered the conventional timeline of human-Neanderthal interactions. The prevailing belief was that Homo sapiens ancestors first mingled with Neanderthals in Eurasia...
Main; Wadi Gharandal riverine wetland along the Jordan Rift Valley. Inset of flaked stone handtool, found in the Jordan Valley. Source: Main; Mahmoud Abbas, Inset; University of Southampton

Humans Used Alternate Migration Route Out of Africa 80,000 Years Ago

By no means is climate change a new phenomenon – in fact, throughout its 4.6-billion-year long history, the Earth has undergone innumerable climatic patterns over thousands of years. A new study...
Investigators in Tam Pà Ling Cave in northern Laos. Source: Kira Westaway/ The Conversation

Modern Humans Went to Southeast Asia Before the Big Wave Out of Africa

Kira Westaway /The Conversation In 2009, when our team first found a human skull and jawbone in Tam Pà Ling Cave in northern Laos, some were skeptical of its origin and true age. When we published a...
Human migration out of Africa seems to have had a long pause in the Arabian Peninsula, acclimatizing, and perhaps enjoying water sources such as these at Wadi Darbat in the Dhofar region of Oman.	Source: hyserb/Adobe Stock

30,000 Year 'Arabian Standstill': New Phase in Human Migration Detected

Ray Tobler / Shane T Grey / Yassine Souilmi /The Conversation Most scientists agree modern humans developed in Africa, more than 200,000 years ago, and that a great human diaspora across much of the...
Modern lady with long, broad nose, of the type now thought to be inherited from the Neanderthal nose. (Insert, Neanderthal holding a skull)            Source: olly/Adobe Stock; Insert, Roni / Adobe Stock

Long and Broad Noses on Modern Humans Were Inherited From Neanderthals

Long dismissed for being our brutish ancestors, we share more with Neanderthals than we think, and increasingly research is showing us just how much there is in common. Scientists have run computer...
Ceramic strainer and collared flasks found to have high-curd content indicating the production of dairy products (Evans et al./The Royal Society)

Neolithic Solutions to Lactose Intolerance Revealed in New Study

During the Neolithic period up until the Late Bronze Age, lactose intolerance was prevalent among the European population. However, a genetic mutation eventually became widespread, allowing adults to...
Reconstruction of a hunter-gatherer associated with the Gravettian culture (32,000-24,000 years ago), inspired by the archaeological findings at the Arene Candide site (Italy). Source: Tom Bjoerklund/Nature

Ancient DNA Reveals Contrasting Fates of Hunter-Gatherer Groups in Europe

Ancient DNA gathered from the bones and teeth of hunter-gatherers who lived as the Last Glacial Maximum was waning, around 19,000-25,000 years ago, has revealed exciting new information about our...
Neanderthal and modern human skulls. Source: Bruder / Adobe Stock

Big Difference Between Neanderthal and Modern Human Brains Discovered

Neanderthals, a subspecies of archaic humans who split from modern humans sometime between 300,000 and 80,000 years ago, have been the subject of a new study. This study has revealed the presence of...
Neanderthal spine (bottom) and post-industrial modern human spines (top) depicting differences in wedging and curvature of the lower back. Source: Scott Williams / NYU’s Department of Anthropology

Neanderthals and Modern Humans Had Similar Posture, New Study Finds

It had long been believed that the now-extinct Neanderthals walked differently and had a different posture than modern humans. This was based on comparative anatomical studies between ancient...
An overview of the trench in the rock-shelter area at Leang Bulu Bettue, Sulawesi, from where the human remains have been excavated.		Source: Brumm et al., 2021, PLoS ONE /CC-BY 4.0

Earliest Human Remains Unearthed On Sulawesi, Indonesia

Archaeologists searching for skeletal remains of ancient Homo sapiens on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have achieved their goal. In Leang Bulu Bettue cave in southwestern Sulawesi, they unearthed...
This is what the human papillomavirus looks like in the body. The latest research has indicated that modern humans got HPV from interbreeding with Neanderthals in Eurasia. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection globally.                Source: Naeblys / Adobe Stock

Neanderthals Passed Human Papillomavirus to Homo Sapiens in Eurasia

It is well-known that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals during the time they co-existed in Europe and Asia. A 2018 study revealed an interesting and intriguing detail about that interbreeding...
Discovery of Genetic Mutation Separating Humans and Neanderthals

Discovery of Genetic Mutation That Separates Humans and Neanderthals

An international team of scientists representing Russia, Germany, and the United States have found a unique mechanism at work in the DNA of human beings that helped shape our species’ evolution, the...
Neanderthal warrior            Source: Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock

Neanderthals and Humans Were at War… For 100,000 Years!

Once much of Eurasia was dominated by Neanderthals, our archaic human ancestors. And the extinction of Neanderthals is one of the great mysteries in science. An evolutionary biologist and...
A group of Neanderthals, who, according to a new research paper, gave modern humans a Neanderthal gene that can make Covid-19 more servere.            Source: Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock

Covid-19 Complications – Are Neanderthals to Blame?

A strand of Neanderthal DNA inherited by modern humans has been linked to your likelihood of falling severely ill with Covid-19 , but not everyone is convinced. The Neanderthal gene is only found in...
Early human interbreeding is well known but a recent research study has shown that modern humans both received and gave DNA to Neanderthals, proving that these hominin cousins met more than once in the long arc of prehistoric time.

Study Reveals Sapiens Copulated the Y Out of Neanderthals

Early human interbreeding with our “cousins” the Denisovans and Neanderthals is an established fact but newly sequenced Neanderthal Y-chromosomes tell scientists that modern humans are the product of...
Male and female Neanderthals were one of our ancestors, but recent DNA research suggests we also have a mysterious archaic human ancestor.  Credit: Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock

DNA Study Reveals We Have a Mystery Human Ancestor

A new method for analyzing modern and archaic human DNA has thrown up some fascinating results. It appears that modern humans ( Homo Sapiens ) mated earlier and more frequently with an archaic human...
Evolutionary geneticists conducting a genome study have found that Neanderthals had a lower pain threshold than the majority of modern humans. Source: proct_ab / Adobe Stock

Do You Have a Low Pain Threshold? Blame Your Neanderthal Genes

Researchers believe that Neanderthals had a lower pain threshold than modern humans. A study has shown that because of genetic mutations our extinct relatives were more sensitive to pain. We...

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