All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

primates

Why is it that hominoids have experienced tail loss, while other primates have not? Source: v_blinov / Adobe Stock

25-Million-Year-Old DNA Explains Why Humans and Apes Don’t Have Tails

While many primate species have tails, humans and their ape cousins do not. For many years scientists have debated the reasons for this curious tail loss variation, trying to understand the reasons...
A reconstruction of Homo habilis. Source: YouTube Screenshot / Scientists Against Myths.

Watch the Evolution from Ape to Man in this Remarkable Animation (Video)

The journey of evolution has been a long one, spanning over millions of years, and our ancestors have survived some of the toughest conditions imaginable to get where we are today. Starting from the...
Brown bear penis bones. Source: Didier Descouens / CC BY-SA 4.0

What Do Dogs and Other Mammals Have That Humans Don’t? A Penis Bone

In a place before time, life somehow emerged on Earth. It grew and flourished. It changed. It split, and some of it went its different ways. There was life in the water and life on the land. Some...
A facial reconstruction of Homo floresiensis, which Forth’s book views as a transitional species between primates and hominins. Source: Cicero Moraes et alii / CC BY 4.0

Is Ancient Human Species Homo Floresiensis Still Alive in Indonesia?

In his newly published book Between Ape and Human , retired anthropologist Gregory Forth breaks the taboo that normally separates traditional anthropological and zoological research from...
snake venom Source: Mark Kostich / Adobe Stock

How Prehistoric Primates Survived Deadly Snake Venom

The story of human evolution is one peppered with the acquisition of a variety of adaptive traits that have been acquired over thousands of years. While we take many of these for granted today, each...
At one of the entrances to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania stands a monument to human evolution: the huge and heavy Paranthropus skull (left) next to a Homo Habilis skull (right).       Source: Иван Грабилин / Adobe Stock

Paranthropus “Nutcracker” Teeth Theory Debunked in New Study

Living approximately between 2.6 million years ago and 0.6 million years ago, the Paranthropus genus is closely related to our genus, Homo sapiens , serving as a long-standing close fossil relative...
Discovery of Genetic Mutation Separating Humans and Neanderthals

Discovery of Genetic Mutation That Separates Humans and Neanderthals

An international team of scientists representing Russia, Germany, and the United States have found a unique mechanism at work in the DNA of human beings that helped shape our species’ evolution, the...
34 million-year-old monkey teeth found in Peru indicate they crossed the Atlantic from Africa.            Source: edojob / Adobe Stock

Teeth Indicate Monkeys Sailed Across the Atlantic from Africa

Keck School of Medicine of USC Four fossilized monkey teeth discovered deep in the Peruvian Amazon provide new evidence that more than one group of ancient primates journeyed across the Atlantic...
20-million-year-old skull discovered in the Andes Mountains of Chile. Source: AMNH / Facebook .

20-Million-Year-Old Skull Whispers Evolutionary Secrets

A visually entrapping 20-million-year-old skull is providing new data on the evolution of brains in primates. Imagine looking through a wormhole into the past and seeing your ancient origins up close...
DNA molecule spiral structure with unique connection.

Study Proves Human Mutation Rate Is Slower Than Believed Posing New Date For Human-Neanderthal Separation

By Christina Troelsen / Science Daily Researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, and Copenhagen Zoo have discovered that the human mutation rate is significantly slower than for our closest primate...
Detail from the side of a seat of a group sculpture shows a baboon holding a cosmetic pot or kohl eyeliner; design by Anand Balaji

Primates of Ancient Egypt: The Bizarre and Satirical Monkeys of Amarna—Part II

Baboons and monkeys were an inalienable part of the religious and artistic landscape in ancient Egypt. A wealth of depictions of these animals exists in varied media spanning all dynasties. But it is...
Detail from one of the canopic jars of Padiouf, a priest of Amun, shows the face of the god Hapy; design by Anand Balaj

Primates of Ancient Egypt: The Deification and Importance of Baboons and Monkeys—Part I

The ancient Egyptians populated their vast pantheon of gods and goddesses with an incredible menagerie of animals and birds. These deities served as protectors, law-givers, healers, patrons of the...
An ankle bone from 52 million years ago suggests that the earliest primates, the ancestors of humans, were great at leaping from tree to tree. Credit: Douglas Boyer, Duke University

Why Your Ancestors Would Have Aced the Long Jump

This tiny ankle bone belonged to one of the earliest members of the primate family tree. The 52-million-year-old fossil suggests that the first primates were expert leapers. Discovered more than 30...
Rock paintings in Tadrart Acacus region of Libya dated from 12,000 BC to 100 AD.

Have Humans Always Gone to War?

The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilization, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight...
One Million Years of the Human Story at the Natural History Museum.

Bigger Brains Led to Bigger Bodies in Our Ancestors

New research suggests that humans became the large-brained, large-bodied animals we are today because of natural selection to increase brain size. The work, published in the journal Current...
A. afarensis reconstruction, an adult left ulna of Australopithecus afarensis. Several fossilized teeth have also been found in the Kantis site. Credit: Image courtesy of Kyoto University

Australopithecus Fossils Found East of the Great Rift Valley

New fossils from Kenya suggest that an early hominid species -- Australopithecus afarensis -- lived far eastward beyond the Great Rift Valley and much farther than previously thought. An...
Neanderthal skull discovered along the Strait of Gibraltar.

Study Says Hominids May Have Entered Europe Via the Strait of Gibraltar 900,000 Years Ago

Researchers at the University of Barcelona believe that they may have evidence that hominids entered Europe through the south of the Iberian Peninsula 900,000 years ago. Evidence for their claim...
Tarsier Primates

The oldest primate skeleton discovered

According to Darwin’s theory , humans are evolved from primates (monkeys, apes etc) – or at least we are somehow related to primates. Even though the evolution theory is not flawless it makes sense...