A study of genetic populations in India suggests the Indian caste system, a traditional method of social organization into a hierarchy of hereditary groups, has been prevalent in the South Asian...
According to an extensive DNA analysis of cat genes the domestic cat is descended from wild cats that were tamed twice; once in the Near East and then in Egypt. The study suggests that cats lived for...
An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, successfully recovered and analyzed...
Discovering who was a leader, or even if leaders existed, from the ruins of archaeological sites is difficult, but now a team of archaeologists and biological anthropologists, using a powerful...
Relationships between the ancestors of modern humans and other archaic populations such as Neanderthals and Denisovans were likely more complex than previously thought, involving interbreeding within...
In “ Textbook Story of How Humans Populated America is Biologically Unviable, Study Finds ” , recently published in Ancient Origins, it was noted that DNA studies indicate that people could not have...
Schizophrenia poses an evolutionary enigma. The disorder has existed throughout recorded human history and persists despite its severe effects on thought and behavior, and its reduced rates of...
A recent study says that a genetic change suddenly arose in the primate family tree about about 280,000 years ago. The researchers claim it is responsible for the largest genetic difference between...
Analyses of ancient DNA from prehistoric humans paint a picture of dramatic population change in Europe from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago, according to a new study led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute...
A new genetic study of male ancestry shows there were periods in human prehistory when just a few elite men controlled reproduction. For example, one man about 190,000 years ago was the ancestor of 1...
Neanderthals and humans branched off about 600,000 years ago, possibly because of genetic incompatibility in the context of the Y chromosome, a team of researchers has announced. There was some...
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...
The Paleo movement, which may include all or some of the following: A Paleo diet, Paleo sleeping, Paleo exercise, etc., is essentially an attempt to integrate as much of the Stone Age hunter-gatherer...
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...
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...
Our close cousins the Neanderthal and Denosivan people interbred with Homo sapiens and gave us genes that help us fight off infections, according to two new studies coming out this month...
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...
The small bodies of infants buried in an ancient campsite in the wilds of Alaska have given researchers a surprising and unprecedented look into the lives of prehistoric peoples and the ancient...
An ancient African genome has been sequenced for the first time ever with the discovery of a 4,500-year-old skeleton in a cave in Ethiopia. DNA recovered from the bones suggest that a vast migration...
The bones of a child from 100,000 years ago display gnawed tooth marks, and researchers are trying to determine if this is evidence of cannibalism in the prehistoric Xuchang Man of China. The two...
Native Americans living in the Amazon bear an unexpected genetic connection to indigenous people in Australasia, suggesting a previously unknown wave of migration to the Americas thousands of years...
