The field of Science has much to contribute to our understanding of human origins. There is a growing body of scientists who point to ever more reasons for doubting the standard evolutionary story and who provide cause to look in new directions.
Oceania was the last region to be settled by humans and the last part of Oceania to be settled by humans was Polynesia. Polynesians are famous for their voyages to remote islands in distant parts 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...
Neanderthals are generally classified by palaeontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis , but some consider them to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens ( Homo sapiens neanderthalensis ). The first...
Peering into the development stages of the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe has always been a challenging task for archaeologists and scholars. Reaching so far back into time in the hope of piecing...
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...
Most people who have the Rh blood type are Rh-positive. There are also instances, however, where people are Rh-Negative. Health problems may occur for the unborn child of a mother with Rh-Negative...
The concept known as “genetic memory” is much less studied and far more controversial than what we know as “regular” memory. Whilst there are a multitude of other examples in animals (see: Gallagher...
The Korean peninsula is known for many things. One thing that may be less well known about Korean culture is its contribution to world astronomy. One particularly visible contribution is the oldest...
Several years ago, a team of scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, set out to put a human face to ancient hominid species that once walked the Earth. Using...
Take notice of any debate in the media and you’ll see that science and religion are, and always were, at loggerheads. Science is about evidence-based fact, religion is about faith-based belief. But...
A new analysis of two 7.2 million-year-old fossils belonging to a hominin species nicknamed “El Graeco” from Mediterranean Europe, suggests that mankind emerged in Europe and not in Africa. The new...
Nick Longrich / The Conversation 300,000 years ago, nine human species walked the Earth. Now there’s just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis , were stocky hunters adapted to Europe’s cold...
The Stone Age is the longest period of human history, lasting from 2.6 million years ago to about 5,000 years ago. It is also the period of human history that is the least well known relative to...
Ancient DNA from India’s Rakhigarhi archaeological site is telling volumes about the destiny of the mysterious Indus Valley Civilization. Around 3000 BC, Neolithic hunters in northern Scotland began...
The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important religious texts in Hinduism as well as one of the most seminal religious texts in the world, alongside the Bible , the Quran , the Torah and the...
Where have we come from? Where are we going? What are we here for? Is life unique to this rocky planet we call Earth? These are the deepest of philosophical questions and perhaps the very first that...
A team of American and Spanish scientists relocated to China to jump European laws and they have created the world’s first human-monkey embryo, in the next step in the controversial breeding of...
For most of our history, scientists have primarily believed that the universe is eternal and unchanging. Aristotle in the fourth century BC asserted that the world is without beginning or end. But...
Current evidence suggests that Neanderthals and humans shared a last common ancestor sometime between 765,000 and 550,000 years ago. We speculate that this ancestor was H. heidelbergensis . The story...
When the journalist Roger Lewin in 1987 dubbed the common maternal ancestor of all people living today “ Mitochondrial Eve ,” he evoked a creation story —that of a woman who was the mother of us all...
The origins of behavioral modernity and what exactly makes us human are topics which have fascinated people for hundreds of years. There is a plethora of theories as to which archaic human ancestor...
A study has made a startling claim. It argues that an extinct species of humans, the Denisovans , may have mated with modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) as late as 15,000 years ago. This claim is based...
Modern humans, Homo Sapiens , are now the only surviving member of the homo genus. It is almost inconceivable to us that there was a time we walked with other human species, but as the science of...
Facial reconstructions allow us to look eye to eye with our ancient ancestors and relate to them in a way that skeletal remains do not inspire. It can be dehumanizing to look at a bare skull , and...