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homo erectus

Illustration of Paleolithic elephant hunting using spears.     Source: Dana Ackerfeld/Tel Aviv University

Stone, Water, and Elephants: Survival Secrets of Early Humans

Tel-Aviv University Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have uncovered the mystery surrounding extensive Paleolithic stone quarrying and tool-making sites: Why did Homo erectus repeatedly revisit...
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...
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...
A tribe of human ancestors, Homo erectus, wanders through the savannah past mammoth skeletons. Source: ratpack223/Adobe Stock)

The Risky Paleo Diets of Our Ancestors (Video)

The excavation of KNM-ER 1808, a Homo erectus specimen, in Kenya unearthed insights into the perilous dietary choices of our ancestors. The skeletal analysis revealed intriguing anomalies, such as...
A tribe of human ancestors, Homo erectus, wanders through the savannah past mammoth skeletons. Source: ratpack223/Adobe Stock)

The Risky Paleo Diets of Our Ancestors (Video)

The excavation of KNM-ER 1808, a Homo erectus specimen, in Kenya unearthed insights into the perilous dietary choices of our ancestors. The skeletal analysis revealed intriguing anomalies, such as...
An AI illustration of a Neanderthal (archaic human) isolated on white background. Source: Bartek/Adobe Stock

5 Incredible Human Species That Went Extinct (Video)

Human evolution , spanning over 7 million years, once featured a diverse array of species, each with unique adaptations and survival strategies. Among them, Australopithecus stands out, thriving in...
A hunter returning with his kill (fotogurmespb / Adobe Stock)

Living Close To The Bone – A Day In The Life Of A Hunter-Gatherer

At the beginning of Herodotus’ Histories, the Athenian lawgiver Solon, one of the seven sages of ancient Greece, points out to his interlocutor Croesus, King of Lydia, that if a person lives to be 70...
An early human extinction event wiped out Homo erectus, dating back 900,000 years ago.  Source: emilio100/Adobe Stock

99% of Ancient Human Population Wiped Out 900,000 Years Ago (Video)

Today, our planet teems with over 8 billion human beings, a staggering contrast to the world 800,000 to 900,000 years ago. Recent scientific revelations illuminate a pivotal juncture in human...
Diorama of Homo erectus using tools at Parc de Préhistoire de Bretagne.       Source: Bas Kers (NL)/CC BY NC-SA 2.0 DEED

Homo Erectus Mastered Oldowan and Acheulean Tools 2 Million Years Ago

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...
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...
Dartmouth researchers report that apes and early humans evolved more flexible shoulders and elbows than monkeys, shown here, to safely get out of trees. Source: Luke Fannin, Dartmouth College/ Royal Society Open Science

"Downclimbing" is the Overlooked Key to Human Evolution, Says Study

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...
Flores hobbits may have arrived on leaf baskets.  Here they interact with stegodons and Komodo dragon. Source: Peter Schouten

Flores Hobbits May Have Floated to the Island on Leaf Nests

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...
Human evolution

A Crash Course In Human Evolution (Video)

Human evolution spans millions of years, shaping our species into what we are today. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, share similarities with us, yet distinct differences exist. Around seven...
Top image: Homo erectus reconstruction. Source: AlienCat/Adobe Stock

Homo Erectus: Why Did the Most Successful Early Human Go Extinct? (Video)

Homo erectus , the remarkably successful early human species, emerged around two million years ago in Africa. With a brain size of 900 to 1000 cubic centimeters, Homo erectus showcased the first...
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...
A replica of the Peking Man skull, because all the originals vanished, from the Peking Man Site, on display at the Paleozoological Museum of China. Source: Yan Li / CC BY-SA 3.0

The Tragic Story of the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian

Nothing sparks the human imagination quite like the question, what came before? Philosophers, theologians, and countless religions have spent millennia pontificating on what came before humanity as...
The fossil of a Homo erectus skull found in recent national civilization origin-tracing program. Source: Courtesy of the National Cultural Heritage Administration

Million-Year-Old Human Skull Found in China Reveals Evolutionary Secrets

Archaeologists in China have uncovered a human skull that is almost unimaginably old. While performing excavations in the central province of Hubei, a team of researchers affiliated with the Hubei...
A new study has revealed that archaic humans reused tools at the Revadim Israel dig site as a way of honoring and remembering their ancestors in a "sentimental" way. 		Source: Andy Ilmberger / Adobe Stock

Archaic Humans Reused Old Tools To Stay Connected With Their Ancestors

Many of the stone tools that are found during archaeological digs at prehistoric sites show signs of having been reused. In fact, there is a typical pattern that seems to repeat itself time and time...

Early Hominins Competed with Saber-Toothed Cats 2 Million Years Ago

Homo erectus , literally upright man, is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, first occurring 2 million years ago, and is widely identified as the first recognizable members of...
Reconstruction of the Homo erectus Turkana Boy from the Nariokotome, Kenya site, exhibited in the Neanderthal Museum in Erkrath, Germany.

Large Cache of Stone Tools Used by Homo Erectus Unearthed in Sudan

Polish archaeologists exploring an ancient gold mine in Sudan in the eastern Sahara Desert struck an entirely different kind of “gold.” Acting on a rumor, they found hundreds of stone tools that were...
Humanity’s First Ancestor is 2 Million Years Old, Skull Fragment Reveals

Humanity’s First Ancestor is 2 Million Years Old, Skull Fragment Reveals

The story of human evolution is a contested one. A basic narrative with certain elements of truth exists in the popular realm which is that the earliest human beings evolved from apes. That stage of...
It Really Was a Planet of the Apes Two Million Years Ago

It Really Was a Planet of the Apes Two Million Years Ago

New genetic research shows early humans’ brains were “much more ape-like” than what is measured in modern humans. What this means is that the first waves of human ancestors to migrate out of Africa...
For 2 million years prehistoric humans were super predators and then all the easy prey went extinct, and we had to evolve to a new dietary paradigm: farming.       Source: anibal / Adobe Stock

The Super Predators That Killed Everything They Could. Humans

A team of scientists in Israel have made the news for having made the rather obvious discovery that humans “have been super-predators for 2 million years.” However, this is the dumbed down media take...

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