A new scientific report published in Nature has concluded that the modern Japanese descended from the Minatogawa people of the Paleolithic era. This is based on a DNA study of a 20,000-year-old human...
Many ancient cultures around the world have their own creation myth to explain their origins, and how the universe came into being. But few are as vivid, or as apocalyptic as the creation myth of the...
In the latest edition of the journal The Innovation , a team of evolutionary scientists led by Professor Qiang Ji from Hebei GEO University in Shijiazhuang, China have announced the discovery of a...
Elongated skulls are usually explained in terms of head-binding or artificial cranial deformation. This paradigm emerged in the first half of the 19th century as a way of explaining unusual skulls...
78,000 years ago someone buried a young child in a cave. Now, researchers say that child’s grave in Kenya is the earliest known example of a deliberate human burial by modern humans in Africa. The...
Located near Zabol in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, the ancient site of Shahr-i Sokhta (“Burnt City”) is one of the largest and richest Bronze Age sites in Iran and the Middle East...
New research at a rockshelter on the edge of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa challenges the assumption that modern human origins and complex behaviors were limited to coastal environments. A...
A multi-disciplinary and multi-national team of archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists in Siberia have announced the sensational discovery of a new hominid species that interbred with our...
Researchers have found the oldest known dog remains in the Americas and they believe the ancient dog bone fragment reveals how the canine and its brethren likely reached that part of the world. How...
A deep and detailed analysis of Neanderthal DNA has revealed the existence of a distinct gene, called NOVA1, that would have significantly influenced early brain development in this long-extinct...
Modern technology has allowed experts to re-analyze ancient Neanderthal teeth discovered at the start of the 20th century in a Jersey cave. They have been found to share attributes with those of...
A human gene injected into monkey brains not only made them larger, but it increased neuron function, making the animals more human. Marmoset brains are much smaller and smoother than human brains...
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a master and his slave from Pompeii , victims of the cataclysmic volcanic eruption that destroyed the city. They were found in the heart of the ruins of...
Archaeologists at White Sands National Park in New Mexico examining a 10,000-year-old track of human footprints , have made more fascinating discoveries. But they’ve also unearthed a trowel-full of...
Two ancient Egyptian sarcophagi were believed to contain human remains. One of them was thought to be a mummified child as it has the appearance of a “small human”. However, CT scanning in 2020...
Every culture has an explanation about how we got here. The ancient Greeks were no different. The dramatic story of the origins of humanity in Greek mythology involves love, pain, and a hefty dose of...
Buried for millennia in the rear of a rock-shelter in the Lapedo Valley 85 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal, archaeologists uncovered the bones of a four-year-old child, comprising the first complete...
When archaeologists were excavating a dry prehistoric lake bed in Motala, Sweden in 2009, they stumbled upon one of the most peculiar archaeological discoveries the nation had seen – the so-called ‘...
When the human genome was first discovered, it revealed some amazing genetic secrets – modern humans are way more complicated than we originally thought. During a long evolution , humankind picked up...
Researchers in China have found evidence that Stone Age people had a close relationship with hares. While they never domesticated them as they did with dogs, it appears that humans changed the...
In the mid-16th century the hyper-violent forces of Spanish conquistadors burned, tortured, raped and spread diseases as they made their way across Mesoamerica in the name of their one god. Yet they...
In Germany, a team of experts have made a very important discovery. They have established that an ancient wooden artifact is a throwing stick (or ‘killing stick’). This is allowing them to understand...
The oldest known Homo erectus and Paranthropus robustus fossils have been found in a hilltop cave and a new study details a critical period of hominin evolution showing that two million years ago “...
There are various ways researchers can explore the evolution of ancient humans and our relatives. Mapping their movements through genetic migrations , discovering more about what they ate and their...