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Evolution & Human Origins

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.

West African rain forest during amazing sunset, Liberia, West Africa

Human Evolution: Secrets of Early Ancestors Could Be Unlocked by African Rainforests

By Eleanor Scerri / The Conversation Think of African rainforests and the picture is inevitably one of a dark and forbidding realm where life is abundant, yet alarmingly cryptic. Rather than the...
Depiction of a Neanderthal

Cold Climates Contributed to the Extinction of the Neanderthals

Climate change may have played a more important role in the extinction of Neanderthals than previously believed, according to a new study published in the journal, Proceedings of the Natural Academy...
Artistic impression of primitive “Stone Age” man

Australian archaeologists dropped the term Stone Age decades ago, and so should you

“Stone Age” is a term often used to refer to early periods in human cultural evolution, when deliberately manufactured sharp stone flakes were the main cutting tool. But it’s also used to describe...
Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia.

Neanderthal Mother, Denisovan Father! Concrete Proof that Hybrid Hominin Families Did Exist

Together with their sister group the Neanderthals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. "We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have...
This restoration is based on evidence from the Daka Member, Ethiopia. The photo in the background is from a gallery forest on the Kebena River, a tributary of the modern Awash River. The squatting posture is based on femoral anteversion frequent in Homo erectus. The hand ax is African latest early or early middle Acheulean. The cranial shape is based on BOU-VP-2-66, the Daka Calvaria.

Idle Not Innovative? New Study Says Laziness Led to the Extinction of Homo erectus

The path of least resistence may not be the best to take. New archaeological research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that Homo erectus , a species of primitive humans, went...
The concave hole found in the Catalonia cave

Discoveries in Spanish cave suggest Neanderthals had hot water and bedrooms

Archaeologists in Spain have made a number of discoveries inside an ancient cave in Catalonia which suggest that Neanderthals had hot water and separate living quarters around 60,000 years ago. The...
In this illustration, the modern pygmy village, Rampasasa, is shown at left; in the center, a modern Rampasasa pygmy wearing the traditional head covering and clothing is juxtaposed against the face of a Homo floresiensis reconstruction; at right, pygmy elephants play in the Liang Bua cave where theH. floresiensis fossils were discovered in 2004.

Scientists Understand Why there are Short-statured Indonesians Today, But Can they Explain Hobbit Height?

Michael Westaway & Francis David Bulbeck / The Conversation Humans are diverse in size and shape – but some populations are of relatively low average height, and historically described using the...
Our species is ecologically unique in its ability to occupy, and specialize in, a variety of different environments as it began to colonize the entire planet between approximately 300 and 60 thousand years ago.

Adapt, Diversify, Find a Niche: Survival Tactics of Homo Sapiens That Brought World Domination

Our species' ability to occupy diverse and 'extreme' settings around the world in the Middle and Late Pleistocene (300-12 thousand years ago) stands in stark contrast to the ecological adaptations of...
Many thousands of years ago, even before Homo sapiens evolved, humanoid people were using fire, according to Chinese scientists.

Use of fire by Peking Man goes back 600,000 years, Chinese scientists say

Chinese scientists are saying an early human ancestor, Peking Man, set up fireplaces and cooked food about 600,000 years ago—the earliest evidence for fire use by a human species yet. They found...
Eritrean Grand Canyon, East African rift valley.

Rethinking Homo sapiens? The story of our origins gets dizzyingly complicated

By Darren Curnoe / The Conversation You might say it’s the ultimate prize of science, to discover when, where and why humans evolved. For a long time, the evidence has been overwhelming that Homo...
Little Foot skull still in place in the Sterkfontein cave.

Scientists estimate fossilized pre-human creature lived 3.67 million years ago

In 2015, scientists announced an earlier time frame than previously estimated for the lifetime of an early proto-human dubbed Little Foot – as much as 3.67 million years ago. The nearly complete...
Picture taken at the site of the discovery of ancient tools in China.

New Find Indicates Humans Left Africa Earlier than Believed

Ancient tools and bones have been discovered in China by archaeologists that suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought. The artifacts show that our earliest...
The 40,000-year-old remains of Mungo Man were discovered in 1974 on the southern sector of the eroding Lake Mungo shoreline.

Fifty Years Ago, at Lake Mungo, the True Scale of Aboriginal Australians’ Epic Story was Revealed

This month marks the golden jubilee of a watershed event in the history of this nation that should cause all Australians to pause and reflect. On July 15, 1968, while searching for clues to past...
Model of the foot (with missing elements) of the Australopithecus afarensis Dikika child.

The Dikka Child Toddled Over the Ethiopian Landscape 200,000 Years Before Lucy

More than 3 million years ago, our ancient human ancestors, including their toddler-aged children, were standing on two feet and walking upright, according to a new study published in Science...
Coming together for a solstice feast in ancient Peru. Robert Gutierrez.

How Feasting Rituals Helped Lead to a Civilized World

Charles Stanish / The Conversation “ The Epic of Gilgamesh ” is one of the earliest texts known in the world. It’s the story of a god-king, Gilgamesh, who ruled the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia in the...
Two actors from the History Channel series “Vikings.”

Survey Shows About Half of Brits Wish They Were Descended from Vikings…and Many Probably Are!

If you’re from the British Isles, do you ever wonder if you’re a descendant of the marauding Vikings known sometimes to rape and pillage far from home and other times to set up settlements and...
Prehistoric Man Hunting Bears by Emmanuel Benner the Younger.

Neolithic Male Genetic Diversity Plummeted – Here’s Why

Starting about 7,000 years ago, something weird seems to have happened to men: Over the next two millennia, recent studies suggest, their genetic diversity - specifically, the diversity of their Y...
Stylized artists impression of Easter Island.

Can Any Civilization Make It Through Climate Change?

A case study of the inhabitants of Easter Island served in part as the basis for a mathematical model showing the ways a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop or collapse...
Fossilized jawbone, dubbed Penghu 1, found submerged in seafloor near Taiwan. Dated between 10,000 and 190,000 years ago. Credit: Y. Kaifu,

Taiwan Jaw Bone Connected to the Origins of Humanity, May Reveal Entirely New Prehistoric Species

The first ancient human fossil found in Taiwan may indicate the presence of an unknown archaic species of humans who lived in Asia during the Pleistocene era, possibly hundreds of thousands of years...
University at Buffalo Ph.D. candidate Alia Lesnek works at Suemez Island.

Clever Rock Science Provides New Possibilities for Migration to the Americas

When and how did the first people come to the Americas? The conventional story says that the earliest settlers came via Siberia, crossing the now-defunct Bering land bridge on foot and trekking...
Genealogy of the Incas by Cuzco School. 18th or early 19th century.

Creation Myths Hold Hard Facts About Our Ancient Origins

The largest pre-Hispanic civilization in the Americas was the Inca Empire and from their capital city of Cusco, rulers known as Sapa Inka (Quechua for "the only Inca”) controlled a vast territory...
Triceratops Horn Dated to 33,500 Years

Did Humans Walk the Earth with Dinosaurs? Triceratops Horn Dated to 33,500 Years

A Triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, has been controversially dated to around 33,500 years, challenging the view that dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago. The...
Human Brain by J.M. Bourgery, 1831-1854.

Why do humans have such large brains? (And why aren’t they larger?)

Mauricio Gonzalez Forero / The Conversation Most animals have brains in proportion to their body size – species with larger bodies often have larger brains. But the human brain is almost six times...
Araucaria over a Nothofagus forest, Araucania Region, Chile.

Critically Endangered South American Forests were Planted by Ancient Peoples

Critically endangered South American forests thought to be the result of climate change were actually spread by ancient communities, archaeologists have found. Huge swathes of land in Chile, Brazil...

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