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Rock art showing a hunter-gatherer ritual dance; Kondoa, Tanzania. Source: Nick Longrich/The ConversationAnchor

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...
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at the Pleistocene era. Source: Ittiz/ CC BY-SA 3.0

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...
Stone Paleolithic tool possibly from Layer VII at Korolevo I. Surface find. Source: Roman Garba / Nature

Paleolithic Tools Prove Hominins Were in Europe 1.4 Million Years Ago

After five decades of speculation about their true origin, ancient stone tools removed from the archaeological site of Korolevo in western Ukraine have been successfully dated for the first time...
AI image of early humans and the taming of fire. Source: Alla/Adobe Stock

How Taming Fire Changed Everything for Early Humans (Video)

The emergence of fire mastery represents a transformative juncture in human development, potentially initiated by early hominins like Homo erectus around 1.6 million years ago . Although the precise...
Reconstruction of the locomotor behavior and paleoenvironment of Lufengpithecus.	Source: Illustration by Xiaocong Guo; image courtesy of Xijun Ni, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

How Did Humans Learn to Walk? New Evolutionary Study Offers an Earful

New York University Humans and our closest relatives, living apes, display a remarkable diversity of types of locomotion—from walking upright on two legs to climbing in trees and walking using all...
AI representation of a Neanderthal man surveying the landscape. Source: Dr_Microbe/Adobe Stock

15 Leaps Forward in Our Understanding of Human Evolution in 2023

2023 could likely be viewed as a coming-of-age story for our Neanderthal cousins, as they further shed their brutish image, revealing themselves as skilled hunters and surprising artisans. We learned...
Homo heidelbergensis facial reconstruction.	Source:	Labrado/Adobe Stock

Scientists Just Found Human Evolution’s Missing Link in Europe (Video)

Recent fossil evidence challenges the prevailing narrative of human evolution, shifting the focus from Africa to Europe's westernmost reaches. Conventional beliefs, rooted in the Out of Africa theory...
Right-handed evolution may have deep roots in our lineage. Source: YouTube Screenshot/PCS Eons

How Humans Became (Mostly) Right-Handed (Video)

The majority of Neanderthals , much like modern Homo sapiens, exhibited a strong preference for using their right hand , as evidenced by the accidental scratches on their teeth. This intriguing...
The Steinheim skull, discovered alongside elephant and rhinoceros bones, has been dated to between 250,000 and 350,000 years. Source: YouTube Screenshot/Highly Compelling

The Oldest Homo Sapiens Skull Ever Discovered (Video)

The Steinheim skull, found on 24 July 1933 near Steinheim an der Murr, Germany, is a perplexing artifact in paleoanthropology , challenges the established narrative of human evolution. Dating back to...
A new study challenges traditional beliefs about ancient human skin color diversity. Source: YouTubeScreenshot/Highly Compelling

Genetics Drive Ancient Human Skin Color Diversity, Study Says (Video)

A recent study published in the esteemed Journal Science challenges conventional beliefs about the evolution of skin color in ancient humans. Contrary to the notion that dark skin evolved in Africa...
Representational image of Neanderthals by a fire. Source: Jeff Whyte / Adobe Stock

Reevaluating Neanderthals: Are They Actually the Same Species as Us?

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...
The fossil fragments in a carbon fiber tube with Professor Lee Berger, Timothy Nash and Mathew Berger.	Source: University of the Witwatersrand

Fossils from Two Ancient Human Ancestors Complete Trip into Space

When Virgin Galactic’s private spaceship, the VSS Unity, was launched into orbit on September 8, it was carrying a most unique cargo. These were two fossilized bones that belonged to two different...
The spheroids of 'Ubeidiya.   Source: Muller, A., et al. /Royal Society Open Science

Scientists Think 1.4 Million-Year-Old Stone Spheroids Were Deliberately Crafted

In the 1960s, when scientists conducted excavations at a site dating back 1.4 million years in northern Israel, they encountered a baffling discovery - they uncovered nearly 600 stone ‘balls’ amongst...
Archaeologists in Turkey, have unearthed a partial cranium of a female, challenging the story of the origins of our human ancestors. Source: Sevim-Erol, A., Begun, D.R., Sözer, Ç.S. et al/CC BY 4.0)

Oldest Human Ancestors May Have Evolved Nine Million Years Ago in Turkey

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...
Artistic reconstruction showing how throwing sticks like the Schöningen Spears would have been thrown.	Source: Benoit Clarys, Universität Tübingen/CC0

300,000-Year-Old Schöningen Spears Reveal Prehistoric Advanced Woodworking

Excavated in the 1990s, the legendary Schöningen spears from Germany, the oldest weapons in human history, have consistently provided fascinating insights into the behavior of our early human...
Schöningen Spears. Source: Forschungs Museum Schoningen.

The Schöningen Spears: The Oldest Weapons in Human History (Video)

The Schöningen Spears , excavated in Germany in the 1990s, provide remarkable insights into the lives of Neanderthals, challenging the notion of them being unintelligent scavengers. These wooden...
View of the hominin tibia from Koobi For a, with magnified area that shows cut marks that are evidence of possible prehistoric cannibalism. 	Source: Jennifer Clark/Smithsonian

Prehistoric Cannibalism Revealed? Human Relatives Butchered Each Other 1.45 Million Years Ago

A human leg bone dating back to 1.45 million years ago is marked with 11 tiny cut marks. A new study shows that while two were made by an animal, probably a lion, the remaining 9 suggest another...
Two of the wigs on the test dummy used to test the performance of different hair in heat control.  Source: George Havenith/ Loughborough University

Hair Texture Helped Ancient Human Brains Expand 2-Million-Years-Ago

A team of scientists has unveiled fascinating insights into the evolutionary significance of human hair texture. By testing various wigs on a specially designed dummy exposed to solar radiation in a...
Were ancient humans hanging out by the fire pits like people do today?         Source: Viks_jin/Adobe Stock

People Were Hanging Out by Fire Pits 250,000 Years Ago

Until now, the use of controlled fires for cooking, in Europe, was thought to have begun around 200,000 years ago. However, scientists in Spain have discovered a set of small prehistoric fire pits or...
Fossil footprints from the Schöningen Paleolithic Site, and a close up of a suspected hominin footprint. Source: ©Senckenberg/Tuebingen University

Oldest Ever Hominin Footprints Uncovered in Germany Offer Insight to Ancient Life

Around 300,000 years ago, a family of early humans visited a lake bordered by an open forest in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. The footprints left behind at the Schöningen Paleolithic site have...
Evidence from several of the Aegean Islands shows archaic humans must have been sailing the seas around 450,000 years ago. Source: Chris/Adobe Stock

Evidence Shows Archaic Humans Sailed to Aegean Islands 450,000 Years Ago

Ample archaeological and geological evidence has now been uncovered that suggests archaic humans were building boats and crossing the Aegean Sea as long as 450,000 years ago, the authors of a new...
A small fish being cooked over a fire. Evidence of cooking fish has been found from 780,000 years ago.	Source: Nicolas VINCENT/Adobe Stock

Cooking Timeline Just Got Burned: Hominins Were Cooking 780,000 Years Ago

Researchers in Israel have found evidence of cooking fish dated to roughly 780,000 years ago. This pushes back the beginnings of humans being able to control fire and cook their food over 600,000...
Extreme size life forms have been reported on countless times, but we are encouraged to pretend they are nothing more than stories.

Lost and Found Evidence of Extreme Size Life Forms Everywhere!

Decades of cinema have accustomed us to the living realities extreme size life forms, from giants to leprechauns. To be fair, ogres, trolls, fairies, sylphs, and goliaths were believed in by humans...
Wood burning, human fire use could date back a million years. Source: nikkytok/Adobe Stock

Human Fire Use Over A Million Years Ago Seems More Likely

There is no smoke without a fire, or so they say, and a group of scientists are applying this thinking to develop new methods to seek out when and where the earliest fire use was. And they have come...

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