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.
Surveyors in Brazil were appraising a site identified for the building of a new apartment complex. However, they downed tools, and called in archaeologists when they started finding bones and shards...
Researchers have created the world's largest ancient human gene bank by analyzing the bones and teeth of almost 5,000 humans who lived across Western Europe and Asia up to 34,000 years ago. By...
Giants once roamed the karst plains of southern China, three-meter-tall apes weighing in at 550 pounds (250 kilograms). These very distant human ancestors - Gigantopithcus blacki - went extinct...
The analysis of human teeth recovered during archaeological excavations has remained a standard means of investigating ancient migration patterns for the last five decades. In fact, this tried-and-...
By Liza Lester/AGU One of the hottest debates in archaeology is how and when humans first arrived in North America. Archaeologists have traditionally argued that people walked through an ice-free...
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...
There is an assumption even today that height is determined almost exclusively by genetics. But this is based on a type of genetic determinism that underestimates the role of culture and environment...
Mike W. Morley et al. / The Conversation In June, researchers led by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger published sensational claims about an extinct human species called Homo naledi online and in the...
Evidence has emerged from Germany dated to 125,000 years ago showing Neanderthals hunted elephants twice the size of contemporaneous ones. Building on that information, which provides new insight...
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...
Homo sapiens represents the last of a long line of hominins that once consisted of five different species spanning four continents. Today, we are the last humans, that is, the last of the genus Homo...
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,...
Neanderthals have been recognized as a species distinct from modern humans for quite some time. But if a trio of researchers from universities in Portugal, Italy and Spain get their way, this...
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...
A international team of paleoanthropologists has just published research supposedly proving that Neanderthals were hunting and eating cave lions nearly 50,000 years ago in Europe. Until now experts...
While they first appeared on the lowland savannas of East Africa around two million years ago, the human ancestor Homo erectus soon expanded their range into the Ethiopian highlands. According to a...
Matthew Robert Bennett & Sally Christine Reynolds /The Conversation When and how humans first settled in the Americas is a subject of considerable controversy. In the 20th century, archaeologists...
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...
A couple of years ago, a study alluded to Neolithic farmers in Chile’s Atacama Desert engaging in violent battles over resources. Turn back the clock further, and a newer study points to ancient...
Charles Helm /The Conversation When and where did our ancestors first fashion footwear? We cannot look to physical evidence of shoes for the answer, as the perishable materials from which they were...
One of the watershed moments in the evolution of ‘human’ or ‘ Homo ’ history is when the first hominids descended from the trees to achieve bipedal locomotion ( Homo erectus ), causing a separation...
Modern humans first left Africa and migrated to Eurasia between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago . But a fossilized skeleton with surprisingly human-like characteristics found in central Turkey suggests...
Approximately one million years ago, the Earth was populated by a few hundred thousand or so ancient human ancestors. But about 900,000 years ago there was a sudden and dramatic crash in this...
While Frodo in Tolkien’s Middle Earth ventured very far to destroy a magic ring and Gollum was a good swimmer, real-life ‘hobbit’ ancestors may have also traversed far to get to their island! After...