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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.

Humans and Neanderthals started breeding together 47,000 years ago. Source: Gorodenkoff/Adobe Stock
28 May, 2024 - 00:50 Gary Manners

Geneticists Think Neanderthals and Sapiens Started Breeding 47,000 Years Ago

Most people alive today carry traces of genes inherited from Neanderthals, indicating a complex history of interbreeding between modern humans and their now extinct cousins. But when exactly we first...
Mangareva - Binary System
26 May, 2024 - 18:03 aprilholloway

Remote Islanders Invented Binary Number System Before Famed Mathematician

Mangareva is home to just 2,000 inhabitants. The island is a tiny 18 square kilometres (6.94 sq mi) and is located halfway between Easter Island and Tahiti. Yet on this small, remote island, the...
View of the Lailea River from on top of the hill containing Laili rockshelter. Source: Mike Morley/The Conversation
23 May, 2024 - 22:20 ancient-origins

Find in Ancient Mud May Rewrite the History of Settlement in Australasia

Mike W. Morley et al./The Conversation Humans arrived in Australia at least 65,000 years ago , according to archaeological evidence. These pioneers were part of an early wave of people travelling...
Neanderthals Archaic Extinct Human Skull Vs Modern Human Skull Comparison Art Study. Source: Winters860/Adobe Stock
22 May, 2024 - 23:00 ancient-origins

Why Neanderthals Probably Didn’t Use Metaphors

Steven Mithen /The Conversation The Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) fascinate researchers and the general public alike. They remain central to debates about the nature of the genus Homo (the...
Top image: Auckland Island merganser. Artistic reconstruction by J. G. Keulemans from Bullers Birds of New Zealand (1888) Bullers Birds of New Zealand. Source: Author provided/The Conversation
21 May, 2024 - 01:00 ancient-origins

Extinct Duck's Ancient DNA Shows How Birds Migrated to Make New Zealand Home

By Nic Rawlence & Alexander Verry /The Conversation Ask a bird lover if they have heard of the extinct giant moa or its ancient predator, Haast’s eagle , and the answer will likely be yes. The...
Oldest human viruses found in Neanderthal DNA. Source: IRStone/Adobe Stock
16 May, 2024 - 22:40 Sahir

50,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Remains Reveal Oldest Human Viruses

Analysis of Neanderthal skeleton remains from 50,000 years ago found 2 years ago in Russia’s Chagyrskaya cave has revealed fascinating genetic data. Genetic material from three prevalent viruses...
TNU University Museum recreation of the Hitra man as he probably looked. The model of the Hitra man was created by Thomas Foldberg Source: Åge Hojem / NTNU University Museum
15 May, 2024 - 17:40 ancient-origins

Meet the Hitra Man, Stone Age Warrior?

By Frid Kvalpskarmo Hansen /NTNU 4000 years ago, a 25-year-old man died on the island of Hitra, in Trøndelag county, Norway. Now he has been given a new lease of life at NTNU University Museum. In...
A cave art prehistoric hunting scene. Source: Maxim Chuev/Adobe Stock
14 May, 2024 - 22:50 Nathan Falde

New Study Suggests Humans Developed Endurance by Running After Prey

Over the course of its long evolutionary history, Homo sapiens (modern humans) gradually developed the ability to run faster and to continue running for longer and longer periods of time without...
Globe map image of the region of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea and now submerged land which once made up the Sahul landmass. Source: ink drop/Adobe Stock
3 May, 2024 - 17:46 ancient-origins

How Evolving Landscapes Impacted First Peoples' Migration to Australia

For the first time, dynamic modelling of terrain has helped us better understand how humans first travelled across the continent of Sahul between 35,000 and 70,000 years ago. New research led by the...
Artist’s image of the saber-toothed cat’s mouth, showing dentistry with double saber teeth. Source: Massimo Molinero/University of California - Berkley
2 May, 2024 - 18:01 ancient-origins

The Double-fanged Adolescence of Saber-toothed Cats

By Robert Sanders / University of Berkeley A mechanical analysis of the distinctive canines of California's saber-toothed cat ( Smilodon fatalis ) suggests that the baby tooth that preceded each...
Dr Emma Pomeroy (University of Cambridge) with the skull of Shanidar Z in the Henry Wellcome Building in Cambridge, home of the University’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies. Source: BBC Studios/Jamie Simonds/University of Cambridge
2 May, 2024 - 14:55 ancient-origins

A 75,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Woman's Face Unveiled

The unveiling of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal's reconstructed face marks a significant breakthrough in our understanding of our closest extinct relatives. This discovery, emerging from the...
Safia Oakley-Green plays the strong female lead in Out of Darkness. Source: Signature Entertainment/The Conversation
1 May, 2024 - 22:50 ancient-origins

Out of Darkness: Here’s How This Stone Age Thriller Surprised Me

By Penny Spikins /The Conversation Neither the choice of genre (survivalist horror) nor time period (43,000 years ago) bodes well for Out of Darkness. After all, films set in the stone age tend to be...
Left; Charles Darwin, Right; Tucker Carlson. Source: Left; Julius Jääskeläinen/CC BY 2.0 Right; Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 2-0
26 April, 2024 - 17:47 Gary Manners

Does Tucker Carlson Have A Point About the Theory of Evolution?

In a recent episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," Tucker Carlson made controversial statements regarding Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, suggesting that there is "no evidence" to support the...
Close up of the prehistoric jawbone containing hominin teeth in the tile, as posted on Reddit. Source: Kidipadeli75/Reddit
24 April, 2024 - 17:43 Sahir

Dentist Finds Prehistoric Hominin Jawbone in Bathroom Tile!

During a visit to his parents' recently renovated European home, a man made an unexpected discovery within one of the floor tiles. Upon closer examination, he identified the object as part of a...
Deep within the Umm Jirsan lava cave system, archeologists find signs of transient desert life. Source: Green Arabia Project
18 April, 2024 - 16:55 Sahir

Giant Lava Tunnel Was Occupied By Ancient Herders in the Arabian Peninsula

A fabulous new study has highlighted the lifestyles of human herders spanning 10,000 - 7,000 years ago, from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age, in the challenging desert environment of the...
Representational image of a chief of the Blackfoot people, produced with AI. Source: cristian / Adobe Stock
6 April, 2024 - 14:50 Nathan Falde

Genetic Analysis Bolsters Blackfoot People’s Land Claims

The advancement of DNA collection-and-analysis technology has had significant consequences for anthropology and archaeology, resulting in surprising revelations about genetic connections between...
A heard of Triceratops horridus walking through a Cretaceous swamp. Source: Bart Bus/Naturalis Biodiversity Center
28 March, 2024 - 13:48 Sahir

New Element of Triceratops Defense Found In Wyoming Fossils

Though Spielberg’s Jurassic Park got a few things wrong historically, it seemed to have got some things spot on. Triceratops, the dinosaur with three horns and the large neck frill, may have indeed...
Rock art showing a hunter-gatherer ritual dance; Kondoa, Tanzania. Source: Nick Longrich/The ConversationAnchor
26 March, 2024 - 21:47 ancient-origins

Why Did Modern Humans Replace the Neanderthals?

By Nicholas R. Longrich/The Conversation Why did humans take over the world while our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, became extinct? It’s possible we were just smarter, but there’s surprisingly...
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
26 March, 2024 - 13:51 ancient-origins

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 image of ancient humans communicating with primitive language and gestures. Source: fotogurmespb/Adobe Stock
25 March, 2024 - 16:51 Sahir

Language Developed 8 Times Earlier Than Previously Thought, Says New Book

A landmark new book that has researched evolutionary and linguistic development of prehistoric humans, has found that language might be older almost 8 times over what was previously believed, i.e., 1...
Pictorial reconstruction of Pebanista yacuruna in the murky waters of the Peruvian proto-Amazon. Source: Jaime Bran/University of Zurich
21 March, 2024 - 16:55 ancient-origins

Prehistoric Giant Dolphin Discovered in the Amazon Has Foreign Connections

Between 3 and 3.5 meters long and 16 million years old: paleontologists at the University of Zurich have discovered a new species of freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon. Surprisingly, their...
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at the Pleistocene era. Source: Ittiz/ CC BY-SA 3.0
13 March, 2024 - 16:55 Nathan Falde

First Ice Age May Have Led to Epic Hominin Migration 900,000 Years Ago

About one million years ago there was a mass exodus of hominin species out of Africa and into Eurasia. Human ancestors fled their home continent in droves, raising questions about why this would have...
Worked “Mode 2” tools from the site with intentional breakage points which point to this sophisticated tool production process arriving in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. Source: IVPP / SciTechDaily.
9 March, 2024 - 16:51 Joe Green

Did Hominids in Asia Use Advanced Tools Much Earlier than Thought?

A new find in China has potentially rewritten the course of prehistory. Did our hominid ancestors use sophisticated tools in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than thought? One of the best ways to...
Indian family standing and smiling holding their kids in the park. Source: kristineldridge/Adobe Stock
8 March, 2024 - 21:58 Nathan Falde

Genetic Study Reveals Shocking Details about Ancestry of Modern Indians

Featuring a rich and diverse mix of ethnicities and cultures, the people of South Asia have always been a source of fascination for scientists interested in studying human evolution and genetics. It...

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