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 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...
Most non-Africans possess at least a little bit Neanderthal DNA. But a new map of archaic ancestry--published March 28 in Current Biology--suggests that many bloodlines around the world, particularly...
If I had taken a straw poll among anthropologists 10 years ago asking them how far genetic research would come in the next decade, I doubt anyone would have come close to predicting the big impact...
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...
Natasha Joseph / The Conversation He lay alone in a shallow grave at the base of a cliff for hundreds of years. Then, in 2008, patrol staff at a game lodge stumbled across the man’s remains - and he...
During the last few years two new and very interesting theories (supported with scientific research) have appeared about Columbus. They suggest that the history of the man who “discovered” America,...
Using several different methods of DNA analysis, an international research team has found what they consider to be strong evidence of an interbreeding event between Neanderthals and modern humans...
Feeling depressed? Can’t kick the tobacco habit? Sun causing skin lesions? Allergies bothering you? Some people of today may blame their Neanderthal ancestry in part for some of these health problems...
A recent study has shown that a group of hunter-gatherers had survived the last Ice Age while living in the modern location of Europe, only to unexpectedly disappear about 14,500 years ago. As the...
A team of researchers using DNA analysis has determined a group of decapitated, animal-bitten, injured men from Roman-era Britain were mostly of European origin, but one was from the Middle East,...
Over the past 25 years, scientists have supported the view that modern humans left Africa around 50,000 years ago, spreading to different parts of the world by replacing resident human species like...
Just last week it became known that the Iceman (also known as Ötzi) was infected with the bacterium H. pylori when he was killed. Now, researchers looking at his mtDNA have pinpointed the origins of...
Anatolia was a source of not just agriculture but of human ancestry during the advent of farming in Europe around 8,000 years ago, according to a researcher from Stockholm University. “When farming...
While researchers were analyzing the genes of prehistoric Irish ancestors they discovered that the beginning of a “Celtic Curse” (haemochromatosis) probably arose 4,000 years ago with a wave of...
In 2015, DNA analysis provided deeper insight into the lives of our ancient ancestors. Studies of their appearance, diet, living conditions, and the human family tree, were all hot topics. Research...
A new study reveals that the origin of man’s best friend may not have been where, or when, the scientific community previously believed. The analysis of a variety of ancient canine DNA has also...
Archaeologists in China have carried out DNA tests on five horses found in a Western Han Dynasty tomb complex in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and discovered that one of the horses was a very rare...
London appears to have been just as ethnically diverse when it was founded by ancient Romans as it is now, when only 45 percent of its residents are Caucasian and people of various neighborhoods...
Through the analysis of 230 samples of prehistoric genome, scientists believe they have identified the genes that gave rise to the European Neolithic revolution - with the transition from hunting and...
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...
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...
Populations of hunter-gatherers weathered the Ice Age in apparent isolation in Caucasus mountain region for millennia, later mixing with other ancestral populations, from which emerged the Yamnaya...
The Minoan people of Crete—Europe’s first high civilization—present a mystery that has long perplexed scholars and inspired much speculation: Where did these people, whose culture and artifacts...
